CHAPTER 6

Sasha Rossi had spent years preparing for this moment.

Years of meticulous study. Years of dissecting criminal networks, learning their patterns, their flaws, their rules of survival.

She had mapped Matteo's empire from a distance, unraveling the intricate dance of power that ruled men like him.

And now?

Now, she was inside.

The headquarters of Matteo's intelligence sector was a fortress—cold, calculated, ruthless. It breathed secrecy, operated on whispers, and demanded absolute loyalty.

Sasha became exactly what she needed to be.

Brilliant, but unthreatening.

Efficient, but unremarkable.

Valuable, but forgettable.

She moved through her first days like a shadow, her presence felt but never questioned.

She arrived on time.

She spoke only when necessary.

She performed with ruthless efficiency.

Her predictions on smuggling routes, intercepted shipments, and potential threats were eerily precise—so much so that her colleagues began to admire her.

They didn't realize what was really happening.

Sasha wasn't just analyzing their operations.

She was dismantling them from the inside.

The deeper she dug, the clearer the cracks became.

Matteo's empire, once untouchable, was rotting from the inside.

Loyalty had thinned.

Trust had eroded.

Fear wasn't as strong as it used to be.

Some whispered about rising competition, others about Matteo's mistakes.

It didn't take Sasha long to see the truth.

Matteo—the man who once saw ten moves ahead—was no longer the ruthless leader he had been.

He was slipping.

Taking risks he never would have taken before.

Overlooking threats that once would have never made it past his doorstep.

This wasn't the Matteo she had known.

And that was his greatest weakness.

Because the man he had been—the one who had betrayed her—would have seen her coming.

This Matteo?

He had no idea she was about to destroy him.

But there was something else.

Something she hadn't expected.

Sasha had spent years perfecting the art of emotional detachment.

She had built a wall so high that nothing—not memory, not regret, not pain—could shake her resolve.

Or so she thought.

One evening, as she finalized a logistics report, a conversation drifted through the dimly lit office.

Two of Matteo's lieutenants.

Their voices low.

Their words sharper than any blade.

"You think he still regrets what happened that night?"

"Tch. Matteo doesn't talk about it. But we all know he lost something that night. A lot of things changed after she disappeared."

"He let his guard down. And now? Look at us. This empire isn't what it used to be."

Sasha's grip on her pen tightened.

A sudden pressure in her chest—an ache she didn't want to acknowledge.

She forced herself to breathe.

To remember why she was here.

Matteo's choices had destroyed her.

She wasn't here to reminisce.

She was here to end him.

By the end of her first week, Sasha had done what no one else had managed.

She had mapped out Matteo's empire from the inside.

Identified its fractures.

Tracked its weakest links.

Memorized its faces, alliances, vulnerabilities.

And with each passing day, she was getting closer.

Closer to tearing it apart.

Closer to making Matteo pay.

But beneath her cold, calculated precision, something lingered.

A ghost.

A whisper from the past.

One she refused to acknowledge.

She silenced it.

There was no room for second thoughts.

Not when the empire she once helped build was about to become nothing but ashes.