Chapter 1 - The Twelve Digits
The silence inside the private study was absolute, save for the faint, rhythmic click-snap of Vivien’s iPhone capturing the classified pages of my life’s work.
Twelve digits.
That was the length of the digital cipher required to unlock the heavy steel door set deep behind the Rothko canvas. I had memorized the sequence on my twenty-fifth birthday—the anniversary of the night I took control of the Rossi-Moretti shipping lanes. It was a combination born of blood, logistics, and ruthless discretion. I had never written it on a slip of paper. I had never whispered it to a pillow. I had never even muttered it in my sleep, or so I believed.
Yet here stood Vivien, my bride-to-be of three weeks, bathed in the soft afternoon light of my study, flicking through the pages of the blue folder as if she were scrolling through a restaurant menu.
The blue folder contained the leverage files.
Every shell corporation in the Caymans. Every compromised city official in Manhattan and Chicago. The ledgers detailing the silent partnership between my syndicate and the federal task force officials who looked the other way. If those files leaked, the empire I had spent two decades bleeding to build would collapse into a federal penitentiary firestorm before the week was out.
And she was photographing page thirty-four.
The page containing the true identity of the mole inside the New York field office.
I did not draw my weapon. I did not kick the door open with a dramatic shout. Instead, I stepped back into the shadows of the corridor, pulled out my encrypted burner phone, and dialed a single three-digit speed dial.
On the second ring, Daniel answered.
“Boss?”
“Bring the perimeter team to the back courtyard,” I whispered, my voice completely devoid of emotion. “Block all service exits. No vehicles leave the gates. And bring two pairs of heavy zip ties.”
“Understood. Moving now.”
I clicked the phone off, slid it back into my overcoat pocket, and took a slow, deliberate breath. When I turned back toward the study door, little Emma was still standing against the wall, clutching her gray rabbit with both hands, watching me with wide, unblinking eyes.
I crouched down beside her.
“You’re a very smart girl, Emma,” I whispered, placing a finger gently against her cheek. “Can you do me one more favor?”
She nodded solemnly.
“Go find your mother in the laundry wing. Tell her to take you out to the gatehouse and stay there with the guard until I call her. Do you understand?”
“Is Aunt Vivien in trouble?” Emma asked, her small brow furrowing.
“Aunt Vivien is playing a game she’s about to lose,” I said quietly. “Go on, now. Fast and quiet.”
May you like
Emma scrambled down the hallway, her bare feet making soft patter-patter sounds against the oak flooring until she disappeared around the corner.
I turned back to the study door, raised my right foot, and kicked it inward with enough force to shatter the heavy mahogany lock-box inside the frame.
