Chapter 2 - The Inner Circle's Rot
"Lock down the estate," I ordered, my voice cutting through the nursery like a razor. "Nobody leaves. No cars out the gates, no data leaves the local servers, and confiscate every single phone belonging to the household staff. If anyone resists, break their legs."
Bruno nodded sharply, tapping his earpiece to activate Code Black protocol. Within seconds, the heavy steel shutters slammed down over the nursery windows, plunging the room into a clinical, artificially lit glow.
Elena dropped to her knees, sobbing openly, pulling Sophie into her arms. "Please, Mr. Moretti, we're innocent! We've worked here for three years! You know me!"
"I thought I knew a lot of people, Elena," I said coldly, turning away from her to inspect the transmitters. "Turns out, my estate is leaking like a sieve."
I walked over to the mahogany desk in the corner of the suite, pulling up the master security feed on my encrypted terminal. The cameras covering the nursery corridor showed a seamless loop of emptiness between 2:00 AM and 4:00 AM.
A loop.
That meant someone with Level 1 administrative clearance—someone with my own biometric authorization codes—had frozen the feed. There were only four people on Earth who possessed Level 1 clearance: myself, Bruno, my head of domestic security, Marcus Vance, and my corporate CFO, Julian Vance.
Marcus and Julian. Brothers. Men I had pulled out of the gutter in Naples, educated, and placed at the right hand of my empire.
My phone buzzed on the desk. It was an encrypted text from Marcus.
Boss, perimeter sweep is clean. No intruders found.
I stared at the screen. Clean. How convenient. If the perimeter was clean, that meant the threat originated from the inside.
"Bruno," I called out quietly, gesturing for my security chief to step away from the crying children and Elena. "Where is Marcus right now?"
"He took the northern gate detail fifteen minutes ago when the lockdown started," Bruno replied, narrowing his eyes. "Why? You suspect him?"
"He has Level 1 clearance," I said, pulling my custom Beretta from its shoulder holster and checking the magazine. "And the perimeter footage was looped from a terminal inside the main command bunker—a bunker only accessible via Marcus's biometric thumbprint or mine."
Bruno’s expression darkened into a scowl. "If Marcus sold us out, I'll put a bullet in his skull myself."
"Let's not be hasty," I replied, though my finger rested dangerously close to the trigger guard. "I want to know who is pulling his strings. Because a low-level traitor doesn't have the technical expertise to build a localized high-frequency neural disruptor capable of targeting infants without alerting adult monitors."
Suddenly, a small tug on my trouser leg made me look down.
May you like
Sophie was standing there, looking up at me with eyes far too old for a four-year-old. She held up the battered cloth doll, its torn seam exposing a tiny blinking blue LED light that had just flickered to life.
"It's talking," Sophie whispered.
