Page 209 of This Life of Mine

The admission lands heavier than I expect.

“But now,” he says, “I don’t have time. And I don’t trust anyone else to see what I’m seeing.”

He holds my gaze.

“Someone within our walls is selling death like a service.”

I stare at him. “Selling...contracts?”

He doesn’t answer immediately.

Understanding clicks into place. “A death broker.”

My father’s silence—and the single nod that follows—are answer enough.

My spine straightens.

Because that isn’t random violence. It isn’t a turf dispute. It’s infrastructure. A business model. A marketplace.

And it’s what Reese and I have been circling for years.

A knowing look crosses his face.

My pulse kicks into overdrive. “You know about it?” I ask him.

“I know enough.”

“How?”

His expression darkens. “I hired someone outside the organization. Someone nobody would connect to me. I needed eyes that weren’t compromised.”

He pauses. “What they found wasn’t a side operation.”

His jaw flexes. “It was something operating within my infrastructure, under my fucking nose.”

He exhales. “The contract on Lina was part of it,” he admits.

The words sink into my chest like shrapnel.

I don’t move. Don’t blink. Just stare at him.

My father watches me absorb it. “I had no part in it Alessandro. That is not the type of business I want to be involved in. But this operation is how I found you.”

My gaze snaps to his.

“The investigator followed the contract. The money. The approvals. Communications that should never have existed.”

His eyes lock onto mine. “Your name surfaced as a target obstacle in the contract, long before anyone knew who you were to me.”

A sardonic smirk appears. “You and I were investigating the same problem from opposite sides.”

I ease back against the wall with a slow exhale.

Of all the cities. Of all the people. Of all the fucking contracts.

My father nods once, as though he’s reached the same conclusion. “Fate,” he says.

I almost laugh. Because fate has never done me any favors.