Page 30 of Shadowed Sins: Nitro

"Good, we're all here." Kade's voice fills the room. "Remy, tell them."

Remy stops pacing, runs both hands through his hair—a tell that means he's been obsessing over something.

"After Sacramento, the blood evidence on Roman's watch kept bothering me. Something about it felt wrong."

My stomach clenches. I force myself to stay still, but my keys start their nervous spinning.

"Wrong how?" Cole asks.

"The spatter pattern, the volume, the way it had oxidized." Remy pulls up crime scene photos on the main screen. "So I asked Kade for the watch. Asked him to send it to Miguel for proper analysis."

On screen, Miguel adjusts his glasses. "I ran comprehensive DNA testing on the blood samples, comparing them against the reference sample we have on file for Roman."

The room goes silent except for the hum of electronics. My keys spin faster.

"The blood on the watch..." Miguel pauses, and I know whatever comes next will shatter our world. "It doesn't match Roman's DNA."

The keys fly off my finger, clattering across the table.

"What?" The word tears out of my throat.

"It's not his blood." Miguel pulls up the analysis. "Different blood type, completely different genetic markers. This blood belongs to someone else entirely."

"Then whose?" Asher's voice cuts through my shock.

"Unknown. It's not in any criminal database we can access."

My brain tries to process this. Roman's watch. Covered in someone else's blood. Found at the scene where he supposedly died.

Not Roman's blood.

"He could be alive." The words scrape past the tightness in my throat.

"We can't jump to conclusions," Kade warns, but even through the video, I can see the tension in his shoulders. "This could mean many things."

"Like what?" My voice rises. "Like he just happened to get someone else's blood all over his watch before dying?"

"Like someone wanted us to think he was dead," Cole says quietly.

"Or he wanted us to think it," Asher adds.

The implications hit like physical blows. Roman alive. Roman choosing to let us think he was dead. Roman abandoning the team, the mission, everything we built.

"Why?" The question comes out broken. "Why would he do that to us?"

"We don't know that he did," Kade says. "This could be enemy action. Kidnapping. Coercion."

"Or betrayal." Asher's words hang in the air like poison.

"Don't." Remy's voice carries warning. "Roman wouldn't—"

"Wouldn't what? Fake his death? Leave us to grieve?" Asher's cold logic cuts deep. "The evidence suggests exactly that."

"The evidence suggests his blood isn't on the watch," Kade interjects. "Everything else is speculation."

But speculation is all I can do. Images flash through my mind. Roman recruiting me when I had nothing. Roman teaching me to channel my chaos into purpose. Roman's supposed death sending me spiraling back to the track, tothe gambling, to every self-destructive pattern he'd helped me break.

"How long?" My voice sounds foreign. "How long have you known?"