Chapter 10 - The Ghost at the Window
The screen of the burner phone seemed to burn against Clara’s palm. The digital light cast an eerie, pale glow across her face, highlighting the sudden terror frozen in her green eyes.
A photo taken from the exterior garden.
That meant the Maroni enforcers—or worse, someone even closer—had bypassed the Gallo estate’s impenetrable security perimeter, walked right up to the glass of her private suite, and snapped a picture while she stood unpacking. The high-tech perimeter sensors, the armed guards at the gates, the multi-million-dollar surveillance grid—it had all been bypassed like a ghost walking through a wall.
Before Clara could process the full, suffocating weight of the threat, a sharp knock rattled the heavy oak door of her suite.
Clara gasped, dropping the phone onto the desk as if it were burning coals. She backed away toward the edge of the bed, her hand instinctively reaching for the heavy brass lamp on the nightstand.
“Clara?”
Dominic’s voice filtered through the wood—deep, calm, but carrying an underlying edge of urgency.
Clara swallowed hard, trying to steady her voice. “Come in.”
The door pushed open, and Dominic stepped into the room. He had changed out of his blood-stained white shirt into a dark grey cashmere sweater that emphasized the broad, powerful line of his shoulders. He looked tired, the shadows beneath his asphalt-dark eyes deeper than before, but the lethal alertness in his posture remained entirely uncompromised.
“Marcus said you were settling in,” Dominic started, his eyes scanning the room before locking onto her pale, rigid expression. He stopped mid-stride, his brow furrowing instantly. “What happened? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Clara pointed a trembling finger toward the desk. “Look at the screen.”
Dominic crossed the room in two long strides. He picked up the burner phone off the desk, his eyes darting across the incoming text message and the attached photograph of her bedroom window.
For three agonizing seconds, the room was dead silent.
Then, Dominic’s jaw clenched so hard a muscle twitched along his cheekline. The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. The casual, protective warmth he had shown moments before evaporated entirely, replaced by the terrifying, cold fury of an apex predator whose den had just been breached.
“How did they get this number?” Dominic whispered, his voice dangerously low, vibrating with suppressed menace. “Only two people in this city have this encrypted line: me, and Marcus.”
“It doesn’t matter how they got the number!” Clara’s voice rose, a sharp edge of panic breaking through her professional veneer. She pointed frantically toward the floor-to-ceiling glass window behind him. “They were standing right down there in your garden, Dominic! They took this picture three seconds ago while we were talking! Your security didn’t even trigger an alarm!”
Dominic didn’t flinch. He pocketed the burner phone, his dark eyes fixed on Clara with an intensity that pinned her in place.
“They didn’t breach the perimeter,” Dominic said, his voice terrifyingly calm. “That gate requires a biometric retinal scan. The sensors cover every square inch of the acreage. For someone to stand in that garden and take this photo without tripping a single silent alarm…” He paused, the horrifying realization dawning on him with brutal clarity. “...someone inside my inner circle let them in.”
Clara’s breath hitched. “Marcus?”
“Not Marcus,” Dominic replied instantly, though a shadow of deep, painful doubt crossed his rugged features. “Marcus has bled for me for a decade. But that means there is a leak. A high-level leak right at the top of the Gallo table.”
Before Dominic could elaborate, a sudden, sharp chime echoed from the hallway—the secure master console alarm mounted in the private quarters.
It wasn't a perimeter breach this time.
It was an internal alert originating from the basement medical bay where Toby Gallo was currently recovering from surgery.
Dominic’s head snapped toward the door. Without a single word, he spun around, drew his heavy suppressed pistol from his waistband, and bolted out of the suite into the hallway, leaving Clara standing alone in the center of the room with her heart pounding in her throat.
She didn't stay behind.
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Ignoring every instinct that told her to lock the door and hide under the covers, Clara grabbed her medical bag off the desk, checked the heavy steel scissors inside, and ran out into the corridor after him.
The chase was no longer just about survival. The war had followed them into the fortress, and the enemy was already inside the walls.
