Chapter 4 - The House of Glass
The phone screen seemed to glow with an unnatural, sickly light in the dim apartment.
Primary terminal accessed: Administrator profile - Eleanor Baron.
I stared at the name, my mind spinning back to the marble floors, the echoing hallways, and the cold, elegant woman who occasionally walked through the Baron mansion like a ghost in designer silk. Eleanor Baron. Elias’s wife. The woman who never spoke to the cleaning staff, who looked through us as if we were part of the architecture, and who lived a life of unimaginable luxury behind gated security.
“That’s impossible,” Elias muttered, running a hand through his dark hair, his legendary composure finally cracking under the weight of the betrayal. “Eleanor doesn't touch the logistics network. She doesn't even know the encryption keys.”
“People are full of surprises today, Mr. Baron,” I said bitterly, standing up from behind the counter with my legs still trembling. I walked over to the small sink and splashed cold water on my face, trying to clear the fog of panic. “You thought your head of security was loyal, and you thought your wife stayed out of your business. Look how wrong you both were.”
Elias stood up slowly, replacing his gun in its holster. The cold, calculating billionaire was gone, replaced by a man realizing that the fortress he had spent a lifetime building was hollow at the core.
“Eleanor’s family has ties to the old syndicate families in New York,” Elias murmured, pacing the narrow space between Evan’s bed and the door. “I thought we left that behind when we married. I thought—navigator, protector—we had an understanding.”
“An understanding doesn't pay debts or settle old grudges,” Evan pointed out from the bed, his voice surprisingly sharp for a sixteen-year-old caught in the middle of a mafia war. “If she’s the one leaking your routes, then framing Adeline wasn't Marcus’s idea alone. It was an insurance policy. If you found the leak, they wanted you to blame the poor girl working the night shift instead of looking across your own breakfast table.”
Elias stopped pacing. He looked at Evan with a new level of respect, recognizing the raw intelligence beneath the kid’s exhausted exterior.
“The board meeting is in four hours,” Elias said, checking his watch. “If Eleanor uploaded the master decryption keys to the Rossi server, they’ll have full control of our shipping lanes by noon. Every asset I own will be frozen or seized before midnight.”
“Then go home,” I said, turning to face him directly, my fear momentarily eclipsed by a sudden, fierce anger. “Go back to your mansion, confront your wife, and lock down your empire. Why are you still standing in our ruined apartment?”
“Because Marcus knows you're Daniel’s sister,” Elias said grimly. “And if he realizes that I know the truth about the setup, you two become the easiest leverage he has left.”
The air in the room went dead silent. He was right. Marcus and Eleanor might have wanted to frame me quietly, but now that the secret was out, we weren't just random bystanders anymore. We were witnesses. We were liabilities.
“We’re not staying here,” I said, making a split-second decision that terrified me to my core. “Pack a bag, Evan. We’re leaving.”
“Leaving to where, Addie?” Evan asked, looking around our miserable apartment as if there was anything here worth saving. “We don't have anywhere else to go.”
“You’re coming with me,” Elias intervened, his voice leaving no room for argument. He reached into his coat and pulled out a sleek, unbranded burner phone, sliding it across the table toward me. “My armored transport is parked two blocks away. There’s a safe house in Vermont—completely off the grid, guarded by men who served under your brother. You’ll be safe there while I handle Eleanor and the board.”
I looked at the burner phone, then up at Elias Baron. A week ago, I would have laughed at the absurdity of a billionaire offering to hide me in a safe house. Now, it was the only option keeping my brother alive.
“And you?” I asked quietly. “What happens to you when you walk back into that house?”
Elias offered a grim, humorless smile that didn't reach his eyes. “I find out how deep the rot goes.”
He turned toward the shattered doorway, stepping out into the hallway to check the perimeter before we made our move. I turned to help Evan grab his jacket, but as I reached for the coat hanging on the back of the chair, my foot brushed against a small piece of metal that had fallen from Marcus’s pocket during the scuffle.
I knelt down and picked it up. It wasn't a shell casing or a stray coin.
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It was a custom brass cufflink, engraved with a distinct, unfamiliar crest—not the Baron family crest, and not the Rossi crest either. It belonged to someone else entirely. Someone who hadn't been mentioned in any of this yet.
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