Chapter 5
843words
I needed answers from the world I'd once sworn to serve.
I drove to a nondescript pay phone downtown and dialed the encrypted number I'd memorized years ago. The call connected immediately, and the coolly professional voice of my handler, "Watchmaker," came through.
"Ada, protocol is radio silence unless absolutely necessary."
"Victor's death wasn't random." My voice quivered with barely contained fury. "Cedric is his killer. He murdered Victor and stole his empire. He's a criminal, not our asset!"
The line went dead silent for several heartbeats—a silence sharp as a blade.
Then the Watchmaker spoke, his voice colder than a January night: "Cedric is now our prime asset. He's more compliant than Victor, has fewer ethical hangups, and is easier to manipulate. A crime lord completely under our thumb—do you understand what that's worth?"
I felt like I'd been struck by lightning, my blood turning to ice in my veins.
"What about me? What about Victor? He knew who I was from the beginning, but he protected me! He—"
"Your mission is to remain at Cedric's side and continue your work." The Watchmaker cut me off icily. "That's an order. Don't let emotions cloud your judgment, Ada. Remember, you're just a pawn, and a pawn's value is in obedience, not questions."
A pawn.
So my years undercover, all my struggles, fears, and sacrifices—in his eyes, I was nothing but a disposable piece on a chessboard. A pawn to be abandoned or sacrificed whenever convenient for the "greater good." My highest purpose was to use my youth and body to seduce one crime boss after another, all for their precious intelligence and control.
Overwhelming humiliation and betrayal engulfed me like wildfire.
"Understood," I heard myself say in an eerily calm voice before hanging up.
I leaned against the cold glass of the phone booth and slowly slid to the floor. What filled my vision wasn't the mission or justice or some bright future—just Victor's face.
I remembered him driving personally to westside shelters on rainy nights, bringing hot soup and blankets to the homeless. I remembered how he banned drugs from his territory to protect neighborhood kids, making enemies of countless profit-hungry rivals. I'd thought him naively idealistic for a crime lord—yet he'd known my true identity all along. He never exposed me, never used it against me. Instead, he quietly prepared my escape route, and even in death, he was still protecting my future.
He was the one who truly stood for something.
And I, serving a cabal of hypocritical bureaucrats, had helped murder the only person who genuinely loved me.
I wiped my tears and rose to my feet. When I stepped out of that phone booth, Officer Ada Brown was dead, buried in the cold, rainy night.
I tracked down Mario again, along with several other former lieutenants who'd once held Victor's complete trust but had been sidelined by Cedric. In a secluded safe house in the suburbs, I laid the scanned letter before them.
When they finished reading, a heavy silence fell. Several hardened veterans with silver hair looked lost, their eyes reddening with emotion.
"The boss, he..." Mario's voice broke, "he knew all along... everything..."
"If you want vengeance against me, I'll accept it. But Cedric didn't just kill your boss—he betrayed us all. The LAPD are now his willing accomplices." I stood and faced these loyal soldiers. "He's turned Victor's legacy into his personal playground, corrupting everything with drugs and senseless violence. Will you watch as everything your boss built gets destroyed by his murderer?"
I didn't raise my voice, but every word hit like a hammer blow.
"Ma'am, what would you have us do?" A mountain of a man named Luca rose to his feet. He'd been Victor's most feared security chief. "We're yours to command! The boss gave us our lives, and now we give them to you!"
"That's right! We're yours!" The others echoed, vengeance burning in their eyes.
Looking at them, I felt the first flicker of warmth in my frozen heart. This was Victor's true legacy—not money or power, but loyalty and connection.
"Good." I nodded, my gaze razor-sharp. "From this moment on, we take back everything that was Victor's, piece by piece. And our first move is to make our new king both blind and deaf."
That night, I returned to the villa, casually deflecting Cedric's questions and advances. In the dead hours, I opened the encrypted comm device and sent my first intelligence report as "Victor's widow" to the Watchmaker.
[Old guard largely eliminated, threat neutralized. Cedric expanding drug network, establishing new Colombian pipeline. Details forthcoming.]
After sending, I wiped all traces.
In the darkness, I gazed at the hollow empire Cedric had built, a cold smile playing at my lips.
In my years undercover, I'd learned one crucial lesson: bullets aren't the deadliest weapons.
Information is.
