Chapter 3 - The Ghost in the SystemI didn't hesitate. I locked the office terminal, secured the Beretta in the waistband of my sweatpants, and sprinted toward the private elevator. The digital display flashed red as the estate’s automated defense grid kicked into partial lockdown mode, shutting down the exterior smart-home functions but keeping the interior lights dim.
As the elevator doors slid open on the second floor, the sharp scent of ozone and something metallic hit my nostrils.
That wasn't just a hack on the gate. Someone had deployed an EMP-adjacent localized signal jammer, cutting off my direct satellite communications and blinding half the internal security feeds. My phone was dead—just a black screen refusing to light up.
I moved through the dimly lit corridors like a ghost, every muscle coiled tight. The mansion was massive, a labyrinth of dark corridors and expensive blind spots. I needed to reach the nursery before anyone else did. If Vance had sent a cleanup crew, they wouldn't enter through the front doors; they would scale the west wing balcony, right outside the children's rooms.
I rounded the corner leading to the east wing and froze.
Elise was standing at the end of the hallway, illuminated only by the faint blue glow of a portable emergency flashlight. She wasn't in her pajamas anymore. She had thrown on a dark trench coat over her clothes, and in her right hand, she was gripping a heavy, antique brass fireplace poker with white-knuckled intensity.
“Mr. Caruso,” she hissed softly, her voice barely a breath as she spotted me approaching. “Get back. Someone is in the courtyard.”
“How do you know that?” I demanded, closing the distance between us in two long strides, my hand instinctively resting over the grip of my gun. “The security monitors in the west wing were jammed ten seconds ago.”
“The smart-thermostat in the nursery dropped four degrees simultaneously,” she whispered, her brown eyes blazing with a fierce, calculating intelligence that completely shattered the image of the timid art graduate. “That only happens when the auxiliary power grid is diverted to override a heavy motorized access point, or when someone triggers the exterior perimeter override. Either way, we have company.”
I stared at her, utterly stunned. “You know how to read the estate's electrical telemetry?”
“My father was a chief electrical engineer for the municipal grid before the company buried him in a wrongful death lawsuit after a corporate sabotage incident,” she said flatly, not breaking eye contact. “Now is not the time for my resume, Mr. Caruso. There are two men climbing the ivy trellis outside the nursery window right now. And I locked the interior reinforced shutters from the inside.”
Before I could process the sheer impossibility of her knowing the exact layout of my panic-fortified windows, a heavy, dull thud echoed against the glass at the end of the hall.
May you like
Glass shattered.
The sound of splintering wood and heavy boots hitting the hardwood floor of the nursery anteroom sliced through the silence.
