Leonardo didn't act immediately.
Instead, he listened.
He spent days mapping traffic irregularities, studying digital footprints, and reviewing surveillance anomalies. The most subtle actions often led to the loudest truths, and Shaw was a maestro of the quiet game. You didn't catch men like Owen Shaw with brute force. You shadowed them until the world forgot you were watching.
One night, beneath a false identity, Leonardo slipped into a poker game in East London. It was hosted by a man named Juno Vallas, a low-level broker with military ties and a habit of selling information to whichever hand held the biggest stack of chips.
Juno was already three whiskeys deep when Leonardo sat across from him.
"You look like a man who knows numbers," Juno slurred, tossing a pair of jacks. "What's your poison?"
"Data," Leonardo replied, casually dealing in. "Yours."
Juno laughed—until Leonardo pushed a miniature flash drive across the table. The image on it was unmistakable: military-grade tactical transport, stolen just four nights ago. The cargo manifest showed explosive components.
Juno's smile wilted.
"You MI6?" he asked.
Leonardo leaned forward. "I'm worse. I'm private."
Juno tried to bolt.
He didn't get far.
Outside, Tabane and Koko waited in a blacked-out BMW. Juno was in the trunk before the streetlights finished flickering on.
The interrogation wasn't bloody. Leonardo didn't need to threaten. He just needed Juno to understand one thing: he already knew everything.
He just wanted confirmation.
And Juno delivered.
Shaw was preparing a team. Fast drivers. Ex-military. Precision skills. They were targeting tech infrastructure, not banks or vaults. He wasn't stealing money.
He was gathering leverage.
The next morning, Leonardo stood in a loft-turned-laboratory as Tabane projected a holographic city grid onto the floor.
"Shaw's pattern puts him in prime position to take out three of Europe's major communications nodes in one hit," she explained. "This isn't just a team-building exercise. It's a rehearsal for tactical disruption on a continental scale."
Koko crossed her arms. "He's building a black-market empire before the market even collapses."
Leonardo nodded slowly.
And at the center of it all?
Letty.
The image flickered again. Another grainy sighting—Paris, this time. Closer than before. She walked like Letty. Moved like Letty.
But she didn't look back.
Not once.
Later That Week
Leonardo met with a contact at a quiet pub in Camden. The man wore a patch over his left eye and carried a cane that disguised a frequency jammer.
"You shouldn't be looking into Shaw," he warned after three sips of bitter ale. "He's not like the street punks you ran circles around in Rio."
"I'm not like them either," Leonardo replied.
The man scoffed. "You think you know what you're walking into? This guy makes moves six steps before the board's even set."
Leonardo tossed a small coin onto the table. It shimmered briefly, then displayed a still image of a woman with short, dark hair and a leather jacket—Letty, frozen mid-stride.
The contact stared.
"She's the bait," Leonardo said.
"She's the weapon," the man corrected.
And with that, the conversation ended.
Back at the flat, Alfred had returned from a brief trip to Zurich, bearing one of Leonardo's old lockboxes.
Leonardo opened it alone.
Inside: a set of photos, dog tags, and one cracked leather notebook.
It was Dom's handwriting.
Old notes from the early days—street races, territory lines, family rules. The kind of thing only a real crew would understand.
Leonardo flipped through them slowly.
He had always been the outsider. Even when Dom brought him in. Even when Mia trusted him. He wasn't born into their world—he was stitched in.
But that never changed what he'd promised himself.
If that family ever came under fire again, he'd be there.
Not as a ghost.
But as a shield.
He closed the notebook and set it beside his coffee.
Then looked up at the city outside.
The storm wasn't coming.
It was already here.