Intercepted calls. Redacted names. Then one line stops me cold.
Secondary tail confirmed. Non-cartel vehicle. Plates unregistered.
My breath catches.
Another page.
Subject believed betrayal originated within trusted circle.
I swallow hard, fingers digging into the paper.
“Konstantin,” I whisper.
He’s standing behind me, close but not touching. I feel him anyway—everywhere.
“I told you,” he says low. “Not all of it was Markov.”
I flip again.
A witness statement. Incomplete. A meeting my father went to willingly. A name blurred out in black ink—but the shape of it feels familiar. Too familiar.
My vision blurs.
“He knew them,” I say. It comes out broken. “Whoever this was…he trusted them.”
Konstantin’s silence is answer enough.
Something inside me fractures—not loudly. Not all at once. It’s quieter than that. Like a fault line slipping deep underground.
I keep reading anyway.
Because I asked for this.
And because once you see the truth, there’s no going back to who you were before it.
The last page makes my stomach drop.
My fingers hover over it for a second—like my body already knows what my mind hasn’t caught up to yet. The paper feels heavier than the rest. Warmer. As if it’s been waiting for me.
A handwritten note.
My father’s writing.
Uneven. Rushed. The way it always got when he was tired or afraid, but trying not to be.
My vision blurs.
I read it again. Slower this time. My chest tightens, breath turning shallow. I can almost hear his voice in the lines—careful, restrained, still trying to protect me even there. Even then.
My fingers slide down the page.
And then I see it.
The signature.
At the bottom of the document, beneath the note. Clean. Official. Confident.
Samuel Reed.