The Mafia's Undoing-Chapter 136: The Discovery
That night, we make love.
It was desperate, emotional, and reclaiming what The Shadow tried to violate.
I was gentle at first, careful, and still treated her like she might break.
"Stop," Katherine whispers. "Don’t treat me like I’m fragile. I need all of you."
So I gave her everything - passion, intensity, and love.
She responded with equal fervor, her nails scratching on my back and gasping my name with her legs wrapped around me tight.
I kissed her tears away, proving we still have each other and we still have this... this connection and chemistry.
This intimacy The Shadow tried to destroy. We moved in rhythm, matching each other beat for beat.
"I love you," she gasps. "No matter what. Even when I’m angry or when I’m scared. I do love you."
"I love you too." I went inside her, thrusting in deep and hard, feeling connected and complete. "We’re going to survive this, like we always do."
"Annoyingly resilient." She whispered.
"Exactly."
Afterward, we were tangled together, sweaty and satisfied, Katherine asked. "Do you really think we’ll survive this?"
"I know we will, because we have to, and you know I damn well refuse to let The Shadow win."
"Good. Me too."
Two days later, Ted calls, and it’s an emergency.
"I found something in Charles’s old files. A student no one knew about."
We all gathered via a conference call - Katherine, Bella, Elliot, Susan, and I.
"Who?" I demand.
"The name’s classified with every mention of it redacted, but there are references throughout Charles’s personal notes."
Ted read out loud. "The Invisible One. The Shadow. My ultimate creation."
Katherine’s face goes pale. "Charles called someone The Shadow?"
"Thirty years ago. Someone he trained to be undetectable and untraceable, the perfect operative."
"Do we have anything?" I asked. "A name? Face? Anything?"
"We do have one thing. It’s a location where Charles trained this person. It’s an abandoned CIA black site in Virginia."
"When do we leave?"
The facility is exactly what you’d expect. It’s abandoned, decaying, and a secret.
Katherine, Luca’s team, Timothy, the FBI tactical, and I were there to breach it together.
Inside, we saw training rooms, interrogation cells, and decades-old surveillance equipment.
"This place is from the Cold War," Timothy observed. "CIA black site decommissioned in the ’90s."
We found training records and photos, but every face was obscured, and every name redacted.
"Whoever this is, they were important enough for government protection," I say.
"Or dangerous enough for government erasure," Katherine counters.
In the basement, Katherine finds it.
It was a single unredacted document that had been overlooked.
A training completion certificate from 1995, signed by Charles Sterling.
Student name partially visible: "...ander Reece."
Katherine’s voice shakes. "Reece. Like Diane Reece."
"Family member?" I’m already searching for more.
Timothy’s pulling up records on his tablet, like birth certificates and marriage records...
"Diane Reece had a sibling. An older brother born fifteen years before her."
The name appeared as Alexander Reece.
"Diane was Charles’s student," Katherine whispers. "But Alexander was Charles’s masterpiece."
It all clicks into place.
Alexander Reece. Diane’s older brother - watching his sister attack us and watching her die.
Learning from her mistakes and perfecting his approach.
"He let Diane go first," I realize. "Let her attack, let her die so he could study us and learn our weaknesses."
"How do we fight someone who’s been studying us for months?" Katherine asks.
"We make him come out of hiding. Make him show himself."
We’re leaving the facility when Katherine’s phone rings from an unknown number. She puts it on speaker.
It was the Shadow’s voice, sounding distorted and cold.
"Congratulations, you found the old training ground. Clever, but here’s what you didn’t find: me."
"Where are you?" Katherine demands.
"At your new penthouse with Bella and David. They’re having dinner, quite a lovely couple."
I stopped in my tracks as the video feed appeared on Katherine’s phone via live stream.
Bella and David, in our penthouse, eating pasta, laughing, and completely unaware.
A figure in black moved silently and deadly behind them.
"Would be a shame if something happened to them," Alexander continues.
"Don’t you dare-" I start.
"You have twenty minutes to get back to the city. It’s a thirty-minute drive from where you are. Do the math, Tony. Someone you love dies tonight unless-"
"Unless what?" Katherine’s voice was steady despite her anxiety.
"You come alone. Just you, Katherine. Walk into your penthouse with no weapons and no backup, and then you trade yourself for them."
"The hell she does." I roared
"Why me?" Katherine responded quietly to him, ignoring me.
"Because Diane died protecting nothing, and I want you to die protecting someone. Poetic, don’t you think?"
"Katherine, no-" I start.
But she’s already moving and racing for the vehicle.
"I’m coming. Don’t hurt them."
"Twenty minutes. The clock’s ticking."
The line went dead, and we’re running for the cars. Katherine was in the lead.
"You can’t do this," I tell her. "It’s a trap."
"I don’t have a choice."
"Yes, you do. We wait for backup. We plan-"
"And Bella dies while we plan. I won’t let that happen!"
We’re in the vehicle with Luca driving, racing toward Manhattan.
I was calling the FBI. Calling everyone, but he was right, twenty minutes wasn’t enough time.
Not for backup and definitely not for a plan.
Katherine was going in alone.
Against Charles Sterling’s greatest creation.
And against a man who had been studying us, learning us, and planning this for months.
"I won’t let you do this," I tell her.
"You don’t have a choice." She looked at me. "If it were my life or Bella’s, what would you choose?"
I can’t answer because she’s right.
I’d sacrifice myself for my half-sister even though I’ve just known her for a short time.
Just like she’s doing now.
We raced through the night, toward a certain trap.
Toward Alexander Reece.
Toward Katherine’s death.
And I couldn’t do a fucking thing to stop it.
