Chapter 3 - The Penthouse TrapThe penthouse at the Moretti Tower occupied the top three floors, featuring floor-to-ceiling glass walls that offered a panoramic view of a rain-swept Chicago. When I stepped out of the private elevator at 8:00 AM
“She’s safe,” Viktor’s text read. “For now.”
The heavy double doors of the executive office swung open, and Dominic stepped out, flanked by two regional capos who looked like they ate raw nails for breakfast. He tossed a heavy encrypted tablet onto my mahogany desk.
"Your first test," Dominic said, walking past me toward the floor-to-ceiling windows. "The shipping docks in South Chicago are losing two million dollars a week in cargo. Someone inside our organization is leaking manifestos to the Chicago Police Department's federal task force. Find the rat by midnight, or your mother loses her private doctor."
"Give me access to the internal logistics database, the encrypted comms logs from the last six months, and the security footage from Dock 4," I said without missing a beat.
Dominic raised an eyebrow, clearly surprised by my lack of hesitation. "You talk like a federal investigator."
"I talk like someone who has a lot at stake," I retorted, sitting down in the ergonomic leather chair and immediately plugging a custom thumb drive into the secure terminal.
For the next four hours, the office was dead silent except for the furious clicking of my fingers across the mechanical keyboard. Years of scraping by had forced me to learn data recovery, forensic accounting basics, and digital footprint tracing just to spot skimming on my old delivery apps. The Moretti syndicate's secure network was complex, but human greed was always simple.
By 2:00 PM, I isolated a recurring anomaly: every time a high-value shipment of imported electronics arrived at Dock 4, an encrypted data packet pinged an external IP address registered to a shell company in the Cayman Islands. I cross-referenced the employee ID associated with that access point.
It belonged to Marcus Vance—Dominic’s second-in-command and the man standing right beside him.
I stood up, picked up the tablet, and walked straight toward Dominic and Marcus, who were deep in conversation by the coffee bar.
"Found him," I said clearly.
Marcus sneered, crossing his arms. "Listen here, little delivery bitch. You don't know a damn thing about—"
"You're leaking to the feds, Marcus," I interrupted, tossing the decrypted packet logs directly onto the quartz countertop. "You set up a shell company called Vanguard Holdings in the Caymans, funneling syndicate manifests in exchange for immunity from Agent Miller of the FBI. Shall I pull up the bank transfer records, or would you prefer to confess to the boss yourself?"
Marcus's face turned the color of ash. He lunged forward, drawing a concealed silver Beretta from his waistband. "You little piece of—"
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Before the barrel could clear his holster, my foot lashed out in a blinding, fluid snap-kick that caught Marcus square under the chin. The impact echoed like a gunshot. Marcus flew backward, smashing into the glass coffee table, shattering it into a million pieces before collapsing unconscious onto the floor.
The room froze. Dominic stared down at Marcus, then slowly raised his gaze to meet mine. A slow, terrifying smile spread across his face.
