He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, sleek black device.

“You made the mistake of keeping your political payoffs on the same secure network as your human trafficking ledger,” Damiano continued.

Marcus’s eyes widened, his gaze darting to the desk in the corner of his study down the hall.

“How did you get access to that?” Marcus whispered.

“You left a backdoor open when you tried to track Arya’s location through my network,” Damiano said.

A younger man in a tactical vest entered the room, carrying a heavy metallic briefcase and several hard drives.

“We have the main server physical backups, boss,” the young man said. “And the physical ledgers from the wall safe.”

“Good,” Damiano said. “Load them into the primary transport.”

Marcus took a step forward, his hands twitching. “If you kill me, Damiano, the police will hunt you down. I have friends in the Department of Justice.”

Damiano let out a short, cold laugh that made the hairs on my neck stand up.

“Kill you?” Damiano asked, tilting his head. “A bullet is far too clean for a man like you.”