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Headline: "He Was Left for Dead Upstairs, But When the Doors Opened, the Traitors Froze!" / Chapter 3 / 6

Chapter 3 - UNDER THE FLOORS

Headline: "The Fiancée’s Final Betrayal! The Terrifying Secret Wired Under the Wheelchair!"The red blinking light was tiny, but in the dim emergency lighting of the dining room, it looked like a beating pulse of pure malice. It was taped directly to the axle of Matteo’s wheelchair, wired into a block of military-grade C4 plastic explosive.

"You think I’m stupid, Matteo?" Celeste hissed, her voice shaking but filled with desperate adrenaline. "I knew you were smart. I knew you’d find out about Marco and me eventually. I had this chair wired weeks ago, just in case you ever decided to become a problem again."

The remaining capos who hadn't eaten the poisoned soup scrambled backward, knocking over chairs as they fled toward the exits, leaving only Matteo, Elena, Celeste, and the dying Marco in the room.

Matteo looked down at the blinking light between his knees. His expression didn't change. "You always did lack subtlety, Celeste. That’s why I never let you handle the finances."

"Shut up! Stand up and face me! Oh, wait—you can't!" she screamed, her finger resting heavily on the trigger button of the remote. "One press, Matteo. One press and you, your little maid, and this entire room become ash. Hand over the offshore account keys. Now. Let me and Marco walk out of here."

Elena stepped forward, her gun still raised, but Matteo lifted a single hand to stop her.

"Elena, step back," Matteo ordered.

"Sir, she’s unstable," Elena said, her eyes locked on Celeste’s trembling thumb.

"I said, step back," Matteo repeated. He looked back at Celeste. "You think you can negotiate with me? With a bomb? You forgot who built this house. You forgot who put that ring on your finger."

"I don't care about the ring anymore! I want the money!" Celeste cried. "Give me the codes, or I swear to God, I’ll blow us all to hell!"

Matteo slowly leaned back in his chair. He didn't look like a man sitting on an explosive device. He looked like a king amused by a court jester. "Go ahead. Press it."

Celeste blinked, caught off guard by his absolute lack of fear. "What?"

"Press it," Matteo whispered, a dark, mocking smile spreading across his face. "Press the button, Celeste. Let’s see if your lover Marco’s engineers are as loyal to you as they were to him."

Celeste’s face twisted in rage. "You think I’m bluffing?!" She jammed her thumb down on the remote.

Nothing happened.

The red light on the wheelchair didn't explode. Instead, it turned a solid, calm green.

From the doorway, a heavy, metallic click echoed. A tall man in a tactical vest stepped into the room, holding a signal jammer. It was Leo, Matteo’s personal security chief, whom everyone had assumed was killed in the ambush three months ago.

"Signal blocked, Boss," Leo said, bowing his head slightly.

Celeste’s jaw dropped. She looked at the remote, then at Leo, then at Matteo. "No... no, Leo was dead! I saw the body!"

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The ink on the emergency audit report was barely dry when the secure terminal on my desk flashed a violent crimson. I hadn't slept in thirty-six hours, my eyes burning from staring at columns of ghost figures, duplicate invoices, and shell corporations linked to Dominic Rossi. But the red alert wasn’t from Rossi’s faction. It was an internal security flag originating from the estate’s main vault deep beneath the west wing.

The ink on the emergency audit report was barely dry when the secure ter...

The glass shattered into a thousand tiny diamonds on the marble, scattering the light from the chandeliers. The muffled laughter died instantly, replaced by a suffocating, heavy silence that crept outward from the grand staircase.

The glass shattered into a thousand tiny diamonds on the marble, scatter...

The heavy oak doors of my private study clicked shut behind us, locking out the clinical, terrifying silence of the kitchen. Evelyn Crane stood stiffly in front of my mahogany desk, her hands folded over her apron with the rigid precision of someone who had spent decades micromanaging every square inch of my estate. Behind her, Norah hovered near the doorway, clutching her clipboard like a shield.

The heavy oak doors of my private study clicked shut behind us, locking...

"You saw a body," Matteo corrected, his voice dropping to a gravelly register that made the hairs on Celeste’s neck stand up. "Elena didn't just come here to be a nurse, Celeste. She’s Leo’s sister. And for the last three months, while you were drinking my champagne downstairs, she was rebuilding my network from the privacy of my bedroom."

The Cliffhanger: Celeste dropped the useless remote, backing away toward the window. But before Leo could secure her, she smashed the glass with a heavy brass candleholder and screamed down into the courtyard: "He’s alive! He’s paralyzed! Kill him now!"

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