Chapter Six: The Confrontation
“You gave them my location.”
Sophia’s voice was shaking now, rising with each word.
“You set up my birthday dinner. You kept me at that table. You gave armed men my exact location and the exact time I’d be there.”
“We didn’t have a choice.”
Patricia burst out, her voice raw with desperation.
“They said if we didn’t help them, they’d kill our whole family. Your father owed them over a million dollars. We didn’t have a choice.”
“You had a choice.”
Arya’s voice cut through from the doorway. Cold and sharp.
“You could have told the truth. You could have asked for help. You could have done anything except sell your daughter’s life to save your own skins.”
Patricia sobbed harder.
Richard had his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking.
“The Kravik offered you a deal,” Arya continued, stepping into the room. “Give them Leon Martinez’s location at a specific time and place. They told you it was just business. Eliminating a rival. They made it sound clean. Professional.”
She stopped in front of them.
“But they lied to you. They didn’t want Leon. They wanted Sophia dead. They wanted you to watch her die, knowing you’d helped make it happen.”
Arya’s voice dropped lower.
“That’s the real payment for your debt. Not money. Guilt. Living with what you did for the rest of your lives. That’s the message they send to everyone who owes them money.”
Patricia made a sound like a wounded animal.
Richard’s whole body convulsed with sobs.
Sophia stood frozen, staring at her parents like she’d never seen them before. Tears streamed down her face, but her expression was empty.
Hollow.
“How much?” Leon asked quietly.
“One point two million,” Richard whispered. “With interest and penalties. Accumulated over three years.”
Leon was silent for a long moment.
His mind worked through calculations, strategies, the mathematics of revenge.
Then he looked at Sophia.
“What do you want me to do?”
Sophia’s face was pale, tears streaming down her cheeks.
But her voice when she spoke was steady.
“Keep them here. Under guard.”
She paused.
“But I don’t want to see them. Not now. Maybe not ever.”
Leon nodded.
“Marcus. Separate rooms. Twenty-four-hour guard. Nobody in or out without my direct authorization.”
As the guards led Richard and Patricia away, still sobbing, Leon turned to Arya.
“I need everything you know about the Kravik organization. Every detail your brother ever told you. Every pattern you’ve noticed. Everything.”
Arya was already pulling out her phone.
“Already working on it.”
She started typing.
“I’ve been building a file for three years. Names, locations, business fronts, money routes, communication patterns. I know how they think. I know how they operate.”
She looked up at him.
Her eyes held a fire Leon recognized.
The fire of someone who had nothing left to lose.
“And I know exactly how to take them apart.”
