Page 169 of Shadowed Sins: Nitro

Asher pushes off from the wall, moving to the other side of the room. "These are recent. Last one's dated five days ago."

Five days.

My breathing turns shallow and rapid. The room tilts sideways.

"But the body—" I stumble over the words. "We found a body. The blood on his watch wasn't even his—"

"We thought it was him based on location," Kade says, his voice hollow. "But the body disappeared before confirmation."

Mira's fingers dig into my leg muscle, anchoring me as the spiral begins.

Seven months. Seven fucking months he's been alive while I—

"I mourned him." The confession rips out of me. "I mourned him while being surrounded by every trigger—racing, casinos, betting. All the shit that makes my brain want to explode."

Cole spins around, pacing behind the chairs. "The psychological evaluation protocols we implemented after his 'death'—"

"Roman was the one who helped me manage it." My hands start trembling, and I can't make them stop. "Without him, I couldn't—the compulsions, the need to calculate odds on everything—"

He knew. He had to know what his fake death would do to me.

The room feels smaller, the air thinner. Mira shifts closer, her presence steady while everything else unravels.

"Seven fucking months he's been alive," I repeat, my voice cracking again.

Vanessa loads another file. Same shadowy figure, same unmistakable mannerisms.

Kade's jaw works silently as he watches Roman's ghost move across screen after screen.

All those nights I couldn't sleep. All those bets I placed trying to feel in control of something. All the times I wanted to call him and remembered he was dead.

"Why?" The question comes out broken. "Why would he let us think—"

But I already know there's only one reason Roman would fake his own death.

To protect us from something worse than grief.

The revelation crashes through me like a high-speed collision. Roman—alive, breathing, moving through the world while we destroyed ourselves grieving him.

My chair scrapes against the floor as I stand. The room's too small, the walls pressing in. I start pacing between the servers and workstations, my feet finding a restless rhythm.

"Seven months." The number tastes bitter. "Seven fucking months he's been alive while we—" I drag both hands through my hair, pulling until it hurts. "While I bet away my savings trying to feel something other than empty."

Mira rises from her chair, tracking my movement. She doesn't speak, doesn't offer empty comfort. Just stays within arm's reach as I wear a path in the floor.

Cole stops his own pacing, turning toward Vanessa's workstation. "What else is on that drive?"

"That's not even the beginning." Vanessa's fingers fly across the keyboard, pulling up folder after folder. "There's communication logs, financial transfers, operational reports."

Operational reports.

I whip around to face the screen. "You're telling me he's been running ops? While we thought he was dead?"

The footage continues cycling. Roman in different cities, different clothes, always in the shadows. Always alone.

Kade moves closer to the monitors, his massive frame casting shadows across the data. "These dates... the timing coincides with several unsolved cases we flagged as suspicious."

"Suspicious how?" Asher shifts away from the wall, joining the cluster around Vanessa's setup.