Page 170 of Shadowed Sins: Nitro

My mind races, connecting dots through the haze of betrayal and relief. "The warehouse fire in Portland. The shipping container that went missing in Seattle."

"Roman was tracking something," Mira says, her voice cutting through my mental spiral. "Or someone was tracking him."

I stop pacing, spinning to face her. "Why didn't he contact us? Unless he couldn't..." The possibility hits like ice water. "Unless someone has him."

"Deep cover gone wrong," Cole mutters, pulling up another chair to study the files. "Or he's been turned."

"No." The word explodes out of me. I slam my palm against the nearest server rack, the metal ringing through the room. "Roman doesn't turn. He doesn't abandon his team."

Vanessa clicks open another file—financial records showing payments to unknown accounts. "These transfers started two days after his supposed death."

Mira steps into my path, her presence solid and grounding. "Then we find out what happened. We find him."

"He let me think I killed him." The admission scrapes my throat raw. "Every bet I placed, every spiral into compulsion—he had to know what losing him would do to me."

The team exchanges glances over my head. They all know about my triggers, my need for Roman's stabilizing influence.

Kade's voice drops to command register. "We work with what we have. No assumptions until we know more."

But I can't stop moving, can't stop the calculations running through my head. Odds of survival after seven months missing.Probability of rescue versus recovery. All the numbers Roman taught me to manage, now turned against the possibility of his return.

Vanessa clicks on a simple text file buried in the deepest folder. The screen goes black for a second, then white text appears:

You needed help. I provided it.

Below that, a list of dates and operation codes scrolls down the screen. My stomach drops as I recognize them.

"October 15th, Long Beach intercept," Vanessa reads aloud, her voice getting smaller with each line. "November 3rd, Portland warehouse. December 22nd, Seattle container yard..."

Cole moves around the table, leaning over Vanessa's shoulder. "Those are our operations."

"Not just ours." I can't stop staring at the screen. The dates blur together as my brain tries to process what I'm seeing. "Those are every major op we've run in the past six months."

Asher pushes away from the wall, joining our huddle around the monitors. "Cross-reference them."

Vanessa's fingers dance across the keyboard. Two screens light up side by side - our mission reports on the left, the mystery timestamps on the right.

"They match," she whispers. "Every single one."

Kade circles around to my other side, his massive frame casting shadows across the data. "Explain what we're looking at."

"Someone's been watching our operations." The words come out flat because admitting it makes my skin crawl. "Every move we made, every success we thought was ours..."

Mira shifts behind me, her presence a steady anchor. "The intel that came through back channels. The threats that got redirected at the last minute."

"The warehouse in Portland." Cole straightens up, his strategic mind clicking pieces together. "We thought the fire was an accident that worked in our favor."

"And the Seattle container disappearing from the manifest system." My voice gets stronger as the connections form. "Right before we needed access to that exact shipping route."

I start moving again, pacing between the server racks. The confined space makes my restlessness worse, but I can't sit still while my world reshapes itself.

Vanessa scrolls to the bottom of the file. "There's something else here."

A simple symbol appears - geometric lines forming what looks like a cipher. Clean, precise, anonymous.

"No name," Asher observes.

"Whoever this is doesn't want recognition." Kade's voice carries that tone he gets when analyzing enemy behavior. "They want results."