The client converted the information into design instructions, then sent the files to people who used them to plan thefts, surveillance, and pressure against Romano businesses.
Iris had been chosen because she was talented, overworked, financially strained, and easy to dismiss.
They had mistaken exhaustion for weakness.
The insider was identified through access logs Matteo voluntarily provided.
Instead of dealing with the betrayal privately, he turned the evidence over through his attorney.
The decision cost him.
Investigators examined businesses he had protected from scrutiny for years.
Accounts were frozen.
Properties were searched.
Several of Matteo’s associates abandoned him as soon as cooperation became public.
He did not emerge as an innocent man.
He had built power through fear, secrecy, and obligations that could not survive daylight.
He was never charged with the crimes Iris’s client had planned, but the investigation forced him to surrender assets and dismantle parts of the organization his family had controlled for generations.
For the first time, Matteo Romano could not solve a problem by making a command.
Iris considered that a necessary education.
Her client was charged with conspiracy, extortion, stalking, and obstruction.
The court ordered him to stay away from Iris and Britney.
Money seized from his accounts covered Iris’s unpaid invoices and part of the damage caused to the targeted businesses.
The photographs from the folder were traced to the rival crew.
Matteo had not taken them.
But he had ordered people to watch Iris after the first delivery, and Iris did not pretend that distinction erased the violation.
Three days after the arrests, he came to her apartment without a pizza.
He stood outside the closed door and called instead of knocking.
“I’m in the hallway,” he said.
“I know.
The camera alerted me.”
“I would like to speak with you.”
“You can speak from there.”
He accepted the boundary.
“I removed everyone assigned to your building.”
“Good.”
“You still have police protection while the case is active.”
“I know.”
“I also gave your attorney a written statement confirming that you owe me nothing.”
Iris leaned against the other side of the door.
“Did you think I believed I owed you?”
“No.
I thought I might be tempted to act like you did.”
That honesty surprised her.
Matteo continued, “When I saw you at the door, I decided I would keep you safe.
I treated that decision as if it gave me a right to enter your life.”
“It didn’t.”
“I know.”
“And I am not yours.”
“No.” His answer came without hesitation.
“You are yours.”
Iris opened the door but left the chain secured.
Matteo looked tired.
Not weak.
Not harmless.
But stripped of the certainty he had worn so easily in the rain.
“What happens to Romano’s?” she asked.
“The restaurants stay open.
They were always legitimate.”
“And everything else?”
“Some of it is gone.
