Chapter 2 – The Steel Gates Drop
The heavy iron gates of the Moretti estate didn’t just swing shut; they slammed sealed with the cold finality of a burial vault.
Five minutes after clearing the ballroom, Dominic stood in the underground command hub beneath the east wing. The room hummed with the steady pulse of redundant servers, flickering monitors, and high-definition camera feeds capturing every angle of the twelve-acre estate.
Marcus Vance, Dominic’s security chief for over a decade, stood frozen before the central console. Sweat glistened on his pale forehead. A security breakdown under Dominic Moretti’s roof wasn’t just a professional failure—it was a death warrant.
“Give me something, Marcus,” Dominic murmured, his voice dangerously level. He shed his suit jacket, threw it across a leather chair, and slammed both palms onto the steel console.
“We’ve pulled all digital logs, boss,” Marcus replied, his throat dry. “Biometrics, keycards, perimeter sensors—not a single alarm went off.”
“Not a single alarm,” Dominic echoed, his dark eyes fixing on Marcus. “An intruder walked into my private kitchen during my son’s party, accessed a locked cold room, and poisoned a child’s cake. And you’re telling me the system saw nothing?”
“Zero unauthorized entries,” Marcus stammered, pulling up the estate’s floor plan on the main screen. “The only explanation… whoever did this used a valid staff clearance code. Or a master override.”
Dominic’s gaze didn’t flicker. “Who holds master overrides?”
“Four people,” Marcus whispered. “Me. Henderson, the estate manager. Chef Laurent. And… Sophia Carter.”
The name lingered in the cold room like smoke.
Sophia. The devoted widow who had kept his home running like clockwork for six years. The mother of the toddler who had just smashed the plate and saved Ethan.
“Sophia was on the second floor changing linens in the guest wing when the food was being prepped,” Marcus added quickly, sensing the shift in Dominic’s posture. “Her card logged her upstairs at the exact moment the cold room was opened.”
“Keycards can be stolen, cloned, or faked,” Dominic said coldly. “Or used as a distraction.”
He straightened up, his mind assessing the threat with ruthless precision. In his line of work, second chances didn’t exist. Yet Sophia had stood before him, terrified for her daughter, completely transparent. If she wanted Ethan dead, she wouldn’t have let her daughter shatter the cake in front of a room full of mob bosses and city officials.
“Lock down the staff wing,” Dominic commanded. “No one steps foot off this property. Confine everyone to their quarters until I personally vet every soul in this house. If anyone steps out of line, put a round in their leg and drop them in the basement.”
“On it, boss,” Marcus said, grabbing his comms unit.
Dominic paused at the heavy blast door, his broad silhouette cutting through the glare of the monitors.
“And Marcus?” Dominic added softly. “Find out who in this house carries a silver box the size of a matchbook.”
