Chapter 11
1261 Words
The blue light of the laptop screen felt like it was searing into Roxanne’s retinas. She had been staring at a spreadsheet of warehouse logistics for so long that the numbers were beginning to look like ancient runes. With a heavy sigh, she clicked the lid shut, the soft thud of the plastic casing echoing in the cavernous silence of the suite.
She leaned back in the high-backed leather chair, her neck popping as she rolled her head from side to side. The room was grand, draped in the kind of silence that only money could buy—thick, heavy, and slightly suffocating. She looked out at the city lights through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Down there, people were living normal lives, worrying about rent or what to have for breakfast. Up here, in the Vane stronghold, the air tasted of old secrets and impending storms.
The heavy door to the sitting room creaked open, and Silas stepped in. He had shed his suit jacket and tie, the top buttons of his white dress shirt undone to reveal the sharp lines of his collarbone. He didn't look like the lethal Don who had intimidated her father hours ago; he looked like a man who was carrying the weight of an entire world on his shoulders.
Without saying a word, he moved to the deep charcoal sofa and sat down, resting his elbows on his knees. He looked tired. Not the kind of tired a nap could fix, but the kind that settled into the bone.
Roxanne stood up, her joints stiff, and walked over to the sofa, keeping a respectful distance as she perched on the edge of a matching velvet armchair.
"You're still up," Silas noted, his voice low and raspy. It wasn't an accusation, just an observation.
"Hard to sleep when I'm trying to figure out which of your loyal subjects is plotting to put a bullet in your head," Roxanne replied. She kept her tone mild, lacking the sharp edge of her usual sarcasm. The phone call with Mia had drained the fight out of her for the night. "Besides, I’m a night owl. The world makes more sense when it’s quiet."
Silas gave a ghost of a smirk, his eyes fixed on the dying embers in the hearth. "Quiet is a luxury in this family. Usually, silence just means someone is reloading."
They sat in a companionable, if slightly strained, silence for a moment. The crackle of the wood in the fireplace was the only sound in the room. Roxanne watched him, her PI brain automatically cataloging his posture, the slight tension in his jaw, the way he guarded his space even in his own home.
"You have a lot of people around you, Silas," she said softly, breaking the quiet. "But you’re hunting a traitor. That means the circle is small. Tell me about them. Not the files, not the payroll records. Tell me about the people you actually trust."
Silas sighed, a long, weary sound. He ran a hand through his dark hair, momentarily disrupting its perfect order. "Trust is a dangerous word for a Vane. But if we're going to pull this off, you need to know who the pillars are. There's Killian, of course."
"Your elder brother," Roxanne prompted. "He seems... protective. But also like he’d rather be anywhere else than at a dinner table."
"Killian is the soul of this family's strength," Silas said, and there was a note of genuine respect in his voice. "By birthright, the seat I’m sitting in should have been his. He’s the eldest. He’s the one who bled first for our father’s legacy. But when the time came for the transition, he stepped aside. He told our father that the family needed a strategist, a shark who could navigate the boardrooms as well as the back alleys. He chose to be my shield rather than the crown. He runs the security, the enforcement, and the base operations."
Roxanne nodded slowly. "That’s a lot of power to give up. Does he regret it?"
"No," Silas said firmly. "Killian hates the politics. He hates the fake smiles and the galas. He’d rather be at the base, overseeing the training or managing the logistics of our shipments. He is the most loyal man I know, but he is also the most suspicious. Don't take his coldness personally; he’s just waiting to see if you’re a threat."
"And then there's Jules," Roxanne mentioned, remembering the man with the reckless smirk she had seen earlier.
Silas’s expression softened slightly, a hint of nostalgia touching his eyes. "Jules. His father was my father’s closest friend and right-hand man. He died in an ambush when we were children, taking a hit meant for my old man. Jules has been like a brother to us ever since. He grew up in this house. He knows our secrets as well as we do."
Roxanne felt a cold flicker of intuition in her gut. Childhood friend. Son of a martyr. Knows all the secrets. In her experience, those were the exact ingredients for a classic Shakespearean betrayal. If Jules felt he was owed more because of his father’s sacrifice, or if he felt sidelined by the biological brothers, he was the perfect candidate for a mole. He had the access, and more importantly, he had the emotional cover.
She kept her face neutral, but she made a mental note to dig ten times deeper into Jules’s personal life than anyone else’s.
"And Cassian?" she asked, steering her thoughts away from the suspicion for a moment.
"The genius," Silas said with a faint tilt of his head. "I found him years ago when he tried to hack into the Vane private accounts. He was eighteen and living in a basement. Instead of killing him, I gave him a job. He’s the only person who can keep up with the tech side of the syndicate. He’s eccentric, and he talks too much, but his loyalty is bought with the freedom I give him to play with the world's most expensive toys."
"So, the elder brother, the childhood friend, and the stray genius," Roxanne summarized. "That’s your inner sanctum."
"That’s the core," Silas agreed. "Tomorrow, I’ll take you to the base. It’s a separate facility—our operational hub. The mansion is for the family, for the masks we wear. The base is where the real work happens. It’s where the shipments are tracked, the money is laundered, and the 'negotiations' take place. You'll need to see it to understand the scale of what we're protecting."
Roxanne looked at him, really looked at him, and realized that despite the velvet and the marble, he was just as trapped as she was. He was guarding a fortress that was rotting from the inside.
"The base isn't like this, is it?" she asked.
"No," Silas replied, standing up and looking down at her. "The base is where the shadows live. Try to get some sleep, Roxanne. Tomorrow, the fake engagement becomes the least of your worries."
He walked toward the second bedroom of the suite, his footsteps silent on the thick carpet. Roxanne stayed on the chair for a long time after he left, watching the last of the fire turn to ash. She had the names. She had the players. Now, she just had to find out which one of them was holding the knife.
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