Chapter 5 - The Unlikely Ally
Leo knew he couldn't hit a prison transport alone. He grabbed the bag and fled into the rainy night. He needed help. He needed someone who hated the Maronis as much as he did.
He flipped through the ledger until he found a name circled in red ink with a note in Silas’s handwriting: Chloe Vance - Journalist. Getting too close. Protect her.
Leo blinked. Vance?
An hour later, Leo sat in a dingy, neon-lit diner on the outskirts of the city. Across from him sat Chloe, a sharp-eyed woman in her late twenties with a leather jacket and a skeptical glare.
"You're Silas's kid brother," she said, stirring her black coffee. "I thought you were just a college kid. Why do you have his ledger?"
"He's going to be murdered tonight," Leo said, sliding the ledger across the sticky table. "I need your help to stop the transport."
Chloe scoffed, flipping the book open. Her eyes widened as she saw the sheer volume of evidence. "This is... this is the holy grail. I've been trying to nail the Maronis for years. But who do you think I am? I'm a reporter, not a commando. I can't stop a prison bus."
"But you know their routes," Leo insisted. "Silas wrote it down. You’ve been tracking their movements. Tell me where they take the people they want to disappear."
Chloe looked at Leo, really seeing him for the first time. She saw the bruises forming on his face, the desperation in his eyes, and the gun poorly hidden under his jacket.
"Leo," Chloe sighed, rubbing her temples. "There's something Silas never told you. About our family."
Leo froze. "Our family?"
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"I'm your cousin," Chloe said quietly. "Your father and my father were the original founders of the Vanguard—a rival syndicate to the Maronis. When they were killed, Silas took you and ran. He tried to break the cycle. If you go after that bus tonight, you aren't just saving him. You're stepping back into the war he sacrificed his life to keep you out of."
Leo looked out the rain-streaked window into the darkness. "I don't care about the war," he said, his voice hardening into steel. "I only care about my brother. Are you in, or are you out?"
