Chapter 8 – Red Flags
385 Words
Gregory Kingston never ignored a threat.
He stood at the head of a long, polished table, walls of screens glowing behind him—each one showing data, photos, maps, surveillance feeds. But his eyes were fixed on a single image:
Rob and Sera on a rooftop.
She was leaning into him.
He didn’t speak at first. Just stared at the screen like it had betrayed him.
Then:
“Pull everything we have on her.”
The man across from him—Daniel Roarke, head of Kingston Global’s internal security—nodded. “Already done, sir. Her name’s Sera Navarro. No legal record after age sixteen. Arrested twice as a minor. Ran with the Delgado crew before Luis got shot. After that... she went dark.”
Gregory’s jaw tensed. “Until she re-emerged with Smoke Syndicate.”
Roarke nodded. “She’s running it now. Quietly. Smarter than the others.”
“And dangerously close to my son.”
He tapped his finger on the screen.
“I want leverage.”
Roarke hesitated. “We could spin something. Leak a story, freeze her accounts, maybe pull in a few old enemies to stir things up.”
“No,” Gregory snapped. “I want her out of his life permanently. Find the weak point. Exploit it. I don’t care how.”
“And Rob?”
Gregory turned to the window, watching the skyline like a man surveying a battlefield. “He’ll come back when she’s gone.”
---
Meanwhile, in East Briar, Sera was pacing the warehouse floor, flanked by Rico and Lina.
“We need to be careful,” Lina warned. “Kingston’s not just some rich dad. He’s an empire in a suit. And now he knows your name.”
“I can handle him,” Sera said, but her tone wasn’t steady.
“You care about him,” Rico said. “That’s the problem.”
She stopped pacing. “I care about us.”
“Then think like a leader,” Lina added. “Not a girl in love.”
Sera didn’t answer. She stared out the warehouse window, where Rob was helping Dre sort encrypted flash drives—earning his place, little by little.
But she could feel it.
The quiet shift in the air.
Something was coming.
And it wore a tie.
- Writer
