Chapter 10 - THE UNKNOWN FREQUENCYMidnight came quietly, wrapping the Manhattan skyline in a blanket of glittering neon and deep indigo shadows. The wedding reception had long since wound down, and the high-ranking syndicate guests had dispersed to their respective territories.
In the master penthouse suite, Emma was fast asleep in her bed, her tiny chest rising and falling in peaceful rhythm.
Alessandro and I stood out on the private wrap-around balcony, a bottle of vintage 1995 Krug champagne chilling in an ice bucket between us. The night air was crisp, carrying the distant, low hum of city traffic far below.
"Penny for your thoughts, Mrs. Moretti?" Alessandro asked, pouring a golden stream of champagne into two crystal flutes and handing one to me.
I took the glass, letting the cool rim touch my lips, but my gaze remained fixed on the horizon where the blinking red lights of antenna towers pierced the dark sky. "I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, Alessandro. Everything feels... too calm. Too quiet."
Alessandro’s expression hardened slightly, the easy warmth of the wedding reception evaporating into tactical alertness. He set his flute down on the glass railing and stepped closer, wrapping his arms around my waist from behind.
"Let them come," Alessandro murmured against my hair. "My security protocols are impenetrable. The biometric scanners, the perimeter lasers, the encrypted satellite feeds—nothing gets within two miles of this building without my authorization."
Before the words had even fully faded from his lips, the ambient lighting inside the penthouse abruptly flickered.
Once. Twice.
Then, every single smart-glass window, digital clock, and security monitor turned pitch black.
Inside the bedroom, a sharp, high-pitched electronic tone began to pulse—not an alarm, but a rhythmic, staccato beep that chilled my blood instantly.
Bip. Bip. Bip.
Alessandro spun around, his hand instinctively flying to the concealed holster under his jacket. "That's not a power failure. That's a localized EMP pulse."
"Emma!" I screamed, dropping my champagne glass as it shattered into a thousand glittering pieces on the concrete. I bolted through the sliding glass doors toward the nursery, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
When we burst into the room, the emergency backup red lights were bathing the space in a bloody glow.
Emma’s bed was empty.
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The heavy, titanium-reinforced window was wide open, the security mesh cleanly sliced away by a high-frequency plasma cutter. And resting on the white goose-down pillow, glowing with a soft, pulsing blue light, was a small, unfamiliar device.
It was a military-grade transmitter. And it was blinking a live, real-time GPS coordinate located deep within the abandoned subway tunnels beneath the financial district.
