Chapter 264 - 0264: You Just Got Your Girl To Yourself

Chapter 264: Chapter 0264: You Just Got Your Girl To Yourself

Roman’s Point Of View

I slammed the car door harder than necessary, the sound cutting through the quiet like a final punctuation to everything that had just happened. For a second, I didn’t start the engine. I just sat there, hands resting on the steering wheel, fingers curled loosely around the worn leather.

My breathing came steady, measured... a deliberate contrast to the storm I’d just walked away from. It took effort to keep it that way. My pulse hadn’t quite caught up with the calm I was projecting, and a faint tremor lingered in my hands, the kind that always followed when adrenaline had nowhere left to go.

Eyes fixed ahead, I stared through the windshield, but the road before me remained a blur of unfocused shapes and shadows. My mind was still back there, still replaying the look on that man’s face when the ground fell out from under him - the exact moment his certainty cracked, the way his jaw had gone slack before he caught himself. My gaze drifted to the passenger seat.

The file sat there, its manila surface catching the late afternoon light. Neat. Untouched. Too pristine for something that had just dragged an entire family through hell and back again. I reached over and tapped it once with my fingers, the gesture almost reverent, then leaned back into the seat.

The leather creaked beneath my weight, a familiar sound that usually brought comfort. Not today. Tonight it only reminded me of how much had changed in the span of an hour, how quickly a man’s whole world could be rewritten with a few signatures and a cold enough voice.

"Damn." A quiet huff escaped my chest, carrying with it the weight of the last hour. "That was messy." Not unexpected... I’d known going in that this wouldn’t be clean. Just messier than usual. More raw. More personal than I’d anticipated. There was a particular kind of ugliness in watching a man’s pride crumble in front of the people he was supposed to protect, and I’d seen plenty of ugliness in this line of work. Still, something about tonight had lodged itself under my skin in a way the others hadn’t, though I wasn’t ready yet to examine why.

I turned my head slightly, looking back through the windshield toward the estate gates. The ornate ironwork stood like silent sentinels. They were still standing there, all three of them, frozen in place like statues carved from shock and anger, their silhouettes dark against the pale stone of the mansion.

I could almost feel the weight of their stares even from this distance, even through glass and steel and the growing dark. One of them... the wife, I guessed, though I hadn’t bothered to learn her name, hadn’t moved an inch since I’d walked away, as if motion itself might make the whole thing real.

Good.

Let them stand there in their disbelief. Let it sink in, let the reality of what had just happened settle into their bones. Some lessons only took root when delivered without mercy, and this family had spent years avoiding exactly that kind of lesson.

I didn’t feel guilty about that. Guilt was a luxury I’d learned to set aside a long time ago, somewhere between the first job and whichever one had come after it that finally stopped keeping count.

My fingers tightened on the wheel, knuckles whitening briefly before I finally started the engine. The low hum filled the car, grounding me. Familiar. Controlled. Unlike the chaos I had just stepped out of, unlike the shattered expressions I’d left behind. I exhaled, long and slow, feeling some of the tension bleed out of my shoulders now that the hardest part was over. My hands, I noticed, had finally stopped their faint shaking.

As I pulled away slowly, gravel crunching beneath the tires, my eyes flicked once more to the file. I muttered under my breath, "You really owe me big time for this, Jaxx. Big time." A small, humorless chuckle followed, the sound hollow in the confined space. Because this wasn’t a simple errand, not even close. This was the kind of thing that left marks on them, on me, on everyone involved. I wondered, not for the first time, how many more nights like this one I had in me before something in me started to crack the way that man’s composure had cracked tonight. It was a question I asked myself often enough that I’d stopped expecting an answer.

My mind drifted back to the morning, replaying the conversation like a film reel I couldn’t stop. His suite. The calm way he had said it, voice smooth as aged whiskey, like he was asking me to pick up coffee, not dismantle a man’s life piece by piece in front of his family. I remembered the way the morning light had slanted through those tall windows, gilding everything in gold while he sat there, utterly unbothered, as though the request were the most ordinary thing in the world.

"Go get the papers."

That was it. No buildup. No explanation. No acknowledgment of what those words actually meant. I had leaned against the wall, arms crossed, watching him with a mixture of curiosity and wariness, trying to read something - anything - beneath that unshakable surface. There was never much to find. That was always the unsettling part.

"And if they don’t hand it over nicely?"

He didn’t even look up immediately, his attention still focused on whatever document he was reviewing. He finished whatever he was doing, then glanced at me like the answer was obvious, like I should have already known.

"Then don’t ask nicely."

I had smirked at that, despite myself. "Define that."

He didn’t. Not really. He just returned to his papers as if the conversation was already over. So I pushed, testing the boundaries he’d left deliberately vague.

"What if I use force?"

Nothing. No reaction. Not even a flicker of concern or hesitation. That was the first sign, the first indication of just how far he was willing to let this go. Then I tilted my head slightly, voice dropping lower.

"What if I hurt them?"

Still nothing. That calm remained unbroken, that quiet stretched between us like a held breath, that dangerous kind of indifference that told me everything I needed to know without a single word being spoken. I remember thinking, in that moment, that I was looking at a man who had already buried whatever softness he once carried, burying it somewhere even he couldn’t reach anymore. It made me wonder, briefly, what, or who, had done that kind of burying to him in the first place.

Then finally, he looked at me properly, his gaze sharp and unwavering. "As long as you get back the files, signed." A pause hung between us... short, deliberate, weighted with unspoken meaning. "Then anything you do to them is your business," he said, his voice carrying the kind of detachment that comes only from absolute certainty.

I let out a low whistle at the memory, shaking my head slightly as I drove. The streetlights flickered past in rhythmic intervals, casting shadows across the dashboard. "Cold." But I couldn’t even blame him. The man had earned that kind of ruthlessness, especially after what I’d witnessed tonight, after the way that bastard talked, all false bravado and empty threats, after the way he held himself like a king on a crumbling throne, as though he still had control even when everything was slipping through his fingers, grain by grain, second by second.

There was something almost pitiful about watching a man cling to power he no longer had, and something satisfying, too, in being the one to pry his fingers loose.

I exhaled slowly, tapping the steering wheel with my fingers in an absent rhythm. The tension in my shoulders began to ease. "Yeah. I’d do worse if it were me." That thought came easy, too easy, and that said enough about the kind of man I’d become. I didn’t dwell on it long. Dwelling never changed anything, and besides, some nights it was better not to look too closely at your own reflection. I’d learned that lesson the hard way, more than once.

I turned onto the main road, the estate disappearing behind me as the city lights stretched ahead like scattered diamonds. The transition from darkness to illumination felt symbolic somehow, leaving one world behind, entering another. The night air slipped through the slightly open window, cool against my skin, carrying the faint scent of rain. Calm again. Everything back where it should be. Except for one thing - a small, stubborn knot of unease that refused to loosen no matter how far I drove.

I glanced at the file again, its manila surface catching the glow from passing streetlights. "Divorce papers." I said it out loud this time, my voice filling the quiet car, testing the weight of it. It felt final. Clean. Decisive. Just like he wanted. Just like she deserved. I shook my head slightly, a smirk pulling at my lips despite myself. "You really went all out for her."

And that was the part that made this interesting, that elevated it beyond a simple job. Not the power he wielded. Not the threats he could make reality. Not even the speed at which everything fell apart for those who crossed him. It was the reason behind it all.

Her.

I leaned back into the seat, one hand loosely guiding the wheel while the other drummed against my thigh. "You’ve got it bad." There was no denying that truth, not with the way he moved, calculated yet driven by something deeper than strategy, not with the way he planned, meticulous, leaving nothing to chance, not with the way he didn’t hesitate when it came to protecting what mattered to him.

And honestly, I got it. I understood that kind of devotion, even if I’d never admit to wanting it for myself, even if some buried part of me ached a little at the thought of never having inspired that in anyone.

After everything I had heard tonight, the insults, the manipulation, the years of control; after everything I had seen, the fear in that man’s eyes when he realized his empire was dust; after the way her name alone carried weight in his tone, softening edges that nothing else could touch, I found myself almost envying whatever it was she inspired in him. It wasn’t jealousy, exactly. More like the quiet recognition of something I’d never let myself reach for.

I chuckled under my breath, the sound almost lost in the hum of the engine. "Man didn’t even blink." That part still amused me, impressed me even. No hesitation. No second-guessing. No moral debate. Just do it, finish it, bring it back, and don’t come back without results. The kind of clarity most people spent their whole lives searching for, he possessed in abundance, and I couldn’t decide if that made him remarkable or simply terrifying. Maybe, I thought, it was both at once, and maybe that was exactly what made him so effective.

I tapped the file again lightly, almost affectionately. "Well..." A small pause as I navigated around a slower vehicle. Then a grin spread across my face. "Mission accomplished."

The car sped up slightly as I hit the open road, the engine responding smoothly under my control, purring with satisfaction. I rolled my shoulders back, settling deeper into the seat, feeling the leather conform to my spine. "Guess this calls for a celebration."

The words came easy, natural. I let out a quiet laugh, shaking my head as I glanced at the file one last time, thinking about what it represented: freedom, justice, a new beginning. Then back at the road stretching endlessly before me, dark and open and full of possibility.

"You just got your girl all to yourself."