Chapter 4 - THE CLEANUP CREW
Back in New York, the penthouse was a war zone of silent panic. Matteo had summoned his inner circle within twenty minutes of the discovery: Luca Rossi, his volatile enforcer whose loyalty was bought in blood; Dominic Vance, his slick, silver-tongued legal counsel; and Marcus Cole, the head of his digital security grid.
"Find her," Matteo said. His voice wasn't loud. It was a lethal, fractured whisper that made Luca flinch. "I want every traffic camera, every toll booth, every credit card ping from here to the Canadian border locked down in the next ten minutes."
Marcus frantically tapped away at a ruggedized laptop on the mahogany dining table, his face draining of color under the harsh chandelier light. "Boss... we have a problem. A major problem."
"Speak," Matteo growled, slamming his fist onto the table, rattling crystal glasses.
"She didn't use a credit card. She didn't use her phone. She drove a cash-registered vehicle registered under a defunct historical preservation trust we didn't even know she controlled," Marcus stammered, sweat beading on his forehead. "And... and boss? The home servers. She didn't just take the physical ledger. Before she walked out of that bedroom, she triggered a dead-man's switch on our internal network. If anyone tries to trace her digital footprint or access the cloud backups of the accounts... the entire financial database auto-wipes and broadcasts an encrypted copy to three federal prosecutor email addresses in the Southern District."
The room went dead silent. Dominic Vance, the lawyer who had kept Matteo out of federal prison for a decade, slowly removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
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"She checkmated us, Matteo," Dominic said quietly. "If we hunt her aggressively, she buries us. If we do nothing, we lose everything."
Matteo looked at the empty doorway of the bedroom. A muscle twitched violently in his jaw. "She thinks she can survive out there alone. She thinks she's untouchable because she holds the keys to the kingdom." He turned to Luca. "Pack your bags. We're going hunting. But we do it quietly. No police. No hits. I want my wife back, and I want my book."
