Chapter 7 - The Prisoner's Gambit
The warden's private office smelled of stale coffee and old paper. Across the heavy oak desk sat Director Harrison of the Federal Bureau's Organized Crime Division, a man who had spent a decade trying to pin a permanent RICO charge on Roman Vascari before Celeste's dossier handed it to him on a silver platter.
"You're asking for an impossible favor, Vascari," Harrison said, leaning back in his leather chair and lacing his fingers together over his stomach. "You're serving a forty-year sentence without the possibility of parole. You expect me to pull strings, relocate you to a high-risk transit facility, and look the other way while you hunt down a ghost from your old crew?"
"Viktor Vance isn't a ghost, Harrison. He's a walking bomb," Roman replied, his voice dangerously low and steady. He stood before the desk, his cuffed hands resting firmly on the wood. "When my empire fell, Viktor scavenged whatever demoralized soldiers were left. He's not just looking for money anymore; he's looking for vengeance. And his primary target is my ex-wife."
Harrison scoffed softly. "Your ex-wife made it abundantly clear she wants nothing to do with you. She carved out a new life three thousand miles away under federal protection guidelines. If Viktor is a threat, our field agents in California will handle it."
"Your field agents don't know Viktor," Roman shot back, a flash of his old authority cutting through the air. "They don't know the subterranean tunnels beneath the Chicago shipping yards where he used to store contraband, and they don't know the psychological profile of a man who operates purely on spite. By the time your agents pick up his trail in Northern California, Celeste and my daughter will already be dead."
Harrison narrowed his eyes, studying the former mob boss with clinical detachment. "And what do you get out of this suicide mission, Roman? A bullet in the chest? Freedom?"
"I don't want freedom," Roman said, his voice dropping all pretense of aggression, replaced by a hollow, crushing weight. "I want my daughter to grow up. I want Celeste to live the life she earned. If I die stopping Viktor, the ledger is balanced. If I survive, I come straight back to this cell and finish every single day of my sentence without a single word of complaint."
The silence in the office stretched out for an agonizingly long minute. The wall clock ticked rhythmically, measuring out the seconds of a ticking clock that could cost two innocent lives.
Harrison slowly opened the middle drawer of his desk, pulled out a secure encrypted satellite phone, and slid it across the mahogany surface.
May you like
"You have forty-eight hours of unofficial transit clearance, Roman," Harrison said quietly, his tone devoid of official sanction. "We drop you off at a safehouse in Reno. After that, you are officially dead to the Bureau. If you get caught, or if you try to run, you're entirely on your own."
Roman looked down at the satellite phone. He picked it up, his fingers curling tightly around the rugged plastic housing. "That's all I need."
