Chapter 7 - The Line of Fire
"Drop the piece, Boss," Luca said. His voice wasn't shaking, but his jaw was locked so tight a muscle ticked in his cheek.
I didn't turn around, keeping my eyes fixed on Mateo. "You picked a bad time to walk into a family conversation, Luca."
"I didn't walk in by accident," Luca said, stepping further into the vault. The overhead light glinted off the barrel of his gun. "I listened to every word through the intercom wire connected to this room. The same wire your father installed thirty years ago to keep tabs on his own brothers."
Mateo let out a slow, tired breath. "So you knew, Luca. All along."
"I knew that old ghosts have a habit of destroying living people," Luca replied, his eyes dark and unreadable. He looked at me, his gaze steady. "Damian, lower the gun. Not because Mateo told you to, but because if you shoot him right now, you'll never find out who signed off on the security bypass this morning."
I slowly lowered the Beretta, though I didn't holster it. "What security bypass?"
"The one that allowed Captain Thomas Vance's car to pull right up to the eastern ridge without tripping a single alarm," Luca said, stepping over to the desk and tossing a thick manila folder onto the mahogany surface. "I didn't run the traffic cameras from Route 420. I ran the internal server logs. Someone inside this house used my master access code at 3:14 AM to disable the perimeter sensors in Sector Four."
I looked from Luca to my uncle. "You."
Mateo shook his head slowly. "Not me, Damian. I don't know the new digital codes. I'm a paper-and-ledger man. But someone who knows both our old world and the new digital infrastructure did it."
"Who?" I demanded.
"Dr. Sterling," Luca said quietly.
The name hit the room like a physical blow. The quiet, gentle family physician who had patched up my father's men for three decades, who had checked little Mia's pulse with a calm smile only hours earlier.
"Sterling?" I barked. "He's a doctor, not an operative."
"He's a surgeon," Mateo corrected bitterly. "And twenty-two years ago, he was the man who signed the false coroner's report on your father's body. He didn't just stitch up wounds, Damian. He covered up murders."
May you like
Luca stepped closer, his face grim. "Sterling isn't downstairs anymore. When I went back to check on the girl just now, the medical suite was empty. Mia is gone."
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