Chapter 255

• Leah's POV
• The moon hung low that night, a fat, accusing bastard spilling its pale light through the blinds, painting jagged stripes across my desk. I glared at my phone as it buzzed, a TikTok push notification clawing its way onto the screen. Some grainy video of the Cosa family's latest shitshow - a surprise FDA inspection, a manager slugging a cop, all polished up with edits and trending under #MafiaPoison, racking up over 100 million reads. Publix had dumped the Cosa family like a bad habit, their stock plunging 23% in a day, tripping some Goldman Sachs clause that forced a scramble. Al Cosa himself had stroked out, kidney shot to hell, rotting in a guarded clinic bed. The whole mess stank of collapse, and I felt it in my gut like a fist.
• I tossed the phone aside, its screen still glowing with chaos, and sank into my chair. The computer hummed alive as I clicked into Texas Hold'em, the virtual table flickering into view. Fiona sat on the other side - Al Cosa's ex-wife, though that divorce was just a paper shield from the FBI's sniffing. They still fucked and fought like nothing had changed. Her face was a ghost through the screen, hollowed out by 72 hours of nonstop play. Seth's AI had her bleeding cash - $470 million in USDT, gone in a digital slaughter. Her despair hit me like damp rot, even through the pixels, and I leaned closer, tasting her ruin.