Chapter 5 - The Ghost in the Wire
The blast from Marco’s twelve-gauge shotgun tore through the doorframe three inches above Paulie’s head, showering the enforcer in splinters of white oak and plaster.
Paulie’s momentum broke. He spun around, the ceramic combat knife flashing in his grip, his instincts taking over.
I didn't give him the chance to reset.
I drove my right boot straight into the back of Paulie’s knee with the full weight of my body. The joint buckled with a sickening *pop*. As Paulie collapsed forward, roaring in agony, I grabbed the collar of his suit and slammed his face downward onto the edge of the marble bar.
The sound of shattering bone was immediate. Paulie went limp, his massive frame hitting the floor like a sack of wet concrete, the ceramic knife skittering uselessly across the hardwood.
Victor backed away toward the far corner of the library, his face drained of every drop of color. His wire-rimmed glasses were askew, his expensive charcoal coat catching on the corner of a high-backed armchair.
"Marco!" Victor gasped, his voice cracking into a panicked shriek. "Don't be an idiot! Dominic is finished! The feds have the warrants! If you shoot me, you’re going down for federal murder! Brennan will pay you two million—cash—tonight! Just walk away!"
Marco Rossi stepped into the room, lowering the smoking barrel of the Benelli shotgun. His heavy face was dark with a murderous disgust.
"Two million?" Marco growled, spitting on the floor near Paulie’s unconscious body. "You cheap little bookkeeper. Isabelle packed my lunch when I took Dominic to the hospital after the Philly hit ten years ago. She held my mother’s hand at her funeral. You think you can buy me with dock money?"
Marco racked the shotgun slide. A red plastic hull clattered against the floorboards.
"Wait," I said.
Marco froze, the barrel leveled directly at Victor’s forehead.
I walked over to Victor slowly. My pulse had leveled out into that terrifying, icy calm. I pulled my handkerchief from my breast pocket and wiped a smear of Paulie’s blood from the cuff of my shirt.
"The federal warrant," I said, looking down at my cousin. "Who signed off on it?"
Victor’s chest heaved. He pressed his back against the bookshelves, clutching his platinum watch against his chest as if it were a talisman that could save him. "Go to hell, Dominic."
"The feds don't move on a boss without unassailable physical evidence," I continued calmly, ignoring his outburst. "You didn't just skim money, Victor. You planted evidence in this house. Where is it?"
Victor clamped his mouth shut, glaring at me with venomous defiance. "You’ll find out at midnight when the FBI swat team breaches your front doors."
"He won't talk, Dominic," Marco muttered, his finger tightening on the trigger. "Let me take him to the basement. Give me ten minutes with a pair of pliers and a blowtorch. He’ll tell you what he had for breakfast on his sixth birthday."
"No," a soft voice spoke from the hallway.
I turned. Grace Bennett stood in the doorway.
She had the SIG Sauer lowered at her side, her finger resting straight along the frame, proper trigger discipline. Behind her, standing at the top of the sweeping central staircase, were three small silhouettes in matching pink flannel pajamas.
"Grace," I barked, my anger flaring. "I told you to keep them in the nursery!"
"They heard the shotgun," Grace replied, her voice trembling slightly but her eyes completely steady. "You can't lock trauma in a vault, Mr. Romano. It follows the noise."
She stepped into the room, completely ignoring Paulie’s bleeding body on the floor and the heavy smell of cordite. She walked straight up to Victor.
Victor stared at her, bewildered. "Who the hell are you? The help?"
Grace didn't answer him. She looked at the ornate crown molding above the library fireplace, then down at the antique brass heat register near the baseboard.
"He didn't plant physical ledgers," Grace said, addressing me. "He planted audio transmitters."
Marco frowned. "Transmitters? We sweep this house for bugs every month. Paulie’s guys use top-of-the-line RF detectors."
"Paulie’s guys were using scanners programmed to ignore frequencies above 2.4 gigahertz," Grace said, pulling a small, black handheld device from her apron pocket—a medical-grade acoustic analyzer used for pediatric sensory testing. "I noticed the interference on my tablet while I was working with Nora’s speech apps last week. There are four micro-transmitters in this house. One in Isabelle’s vanity mirror. One in the dining room chandelier. One in the nursery baseboard."
She looked at Victor, her expression chillingly clinical.
"And one inside the silver music box you gave Sophie for her fifth birthday."
A low, guttural sound tore from my throat.
The music box. The one that played *Swan Lake*. Sophie had kept it on her bedside table every night since her mother died. She had slept with her hand resting on the silver lid because Victor had told her it would keep her mother’s memory safe.
He had been listening to my silent, grieving children for fourteen months. Waiting to see if they would ever remember the sound of his engine.
I closed the distance between us in half a second.
My hand clamped around Victor’s throat, lifting him three inches off the floor and slamming his spine against the walnut shelves. Books tumbled around us—Dickens, Shakespeare, legal tomes—crashing to the carpet.
"You put a wire in my daughter's bedroom?" I whispered into his ear.
Victor’s hands clawed frantically at my fingers. His face was turning purple, his feet kicking uselessly against the wood. "D-Dominic... please..."
"Where is the receiver?" I hissed, tightening my grip until his windpipe clicked. "Where are the files stored?"
"The... the Maybach," Victor managed to choke out, his eyes bulging behind his lenses. "Laptop... in the trunk... encrypted partition... password is... is Isabelle’s birthday..."
I let go. Victor crashed to the floor, gasping and retching, rubbing his bruised throat.
"Marco," I said, not taking my eyes off my cousin. "Get the laptop. Bring it here."
Marco nodded grimly, stepping over Paulie’s groaning form and heading for the front doors.
I turned around. Grace was standing near the door, her eyes fixed on the three little girls sitting huddled at the top of the stairs. They weren't crying. Olivia had her arms wrapped tightly around both of her younger sisters. They were staring down into the foyer, looking at their father.
They were looking at the beast their father was.
The realization struck me like a physical blow. Isabelle had spent ten years trying to build a fortress of light around our children so they would never know the violence that paid for their life. And here I was, standing in a wreckage of shattered glass, blood, and spent gunpowder, holding the life of their uncle in my bare hands.
"Dominic," Grace said softly, stepping closer. "Don't let them see you become what he is."
"He killed their mother, Grace," I rasped, my hands shaking with an adrenaline so toxic it tasted like copper in my mouth. "He stole fourteen months of their lives. He planned to sell them to boarding schools to cover his theft."
"I know," she said. Her hand touched my forearm. Her touch was warm, human, grounding. "And he will pay for every single second of it. But not like this. Not in front of them."
She looked up at the stairs. "Olivia. Sophie. Nora. Come down."
"Grace, no!" I said, reaching to stop her.
"Trust me," Grace whispered, looking straight into my eyes with an intensity that brooked no argument. "You spent fourteen months trying to buy their peace with toys and doctors. Now show them that their father can protect them without destroying their souls."
May you like
The three little girls stood up. Slowly, hesitantly, they walked down the sweeping marble staircase.
***
