Chapter 2 - The South Terrace
The morning air smelled of wet pine and salt spray.
By six-forty-five, I was back in the subterranean control room, my eyes locked on monitor four and monitor twelve, which covered the southern perimeter of the estate. The rain had cleared, leaving the massive stone terrace gleaming under a pale, grey Atlantic sky.
At precisely seven o’aklock, the glass doors of the corridor slid open.
Clara pushed Matteo out in his custom titanium wheelchair. He wore a heavy wool sweater, his blanket tucked securely around his lap. For the first time in over a year, sunlight hit his face without a pane of glass between them.
I watched through the ultra-high-definition zoom lens as the wind caught his hair. Matteo flinched slightly, his hands gripping the armrests, but he didn't ask to go back inside.
“Feel that?” Clara asked, leaning against the stone balustrade.
Matteo nodded slowly, his eyes wide as he looked out over the cliff edge toward the restless ocean below. “It’s cold.”
“That’s what being alive feels like,” Clara said.
On my console, the motion-sensor alarm on the western gate flashed amber.
I hit the intercom linking my desk to the security station at the main entrance. “Dominic. Report.”
“Visitor at the outer gate, Mr. Rossi,” Dominic’s voice crackled back, tight and slightly strained. “It’s Marcus Vance.”
My entire body stiffened.
Vance.
The name alone tasted like old copper and gunpowder. Marcus Vance was my primary rival in the international shipping syndicate—a man who had spent the last five years trying to muscle me out of the Atlantic freight corridors, and a man I strongly suspected had ties to the syndicate that planted the car bomb that killed my wife.
“What does he want?” I asked, my voice dropping into a lethal register.
“He says he’s here to offer condolences on the anniversary of the accident, sir. And to discuss a ‘mutually beneficial buyout’ of our port terminals.”
“Turn him away. If he steps foot past the outer cattle grid, arm the perimeter grid.”
“He’s not alone, Mr. Rossi,” Dominic said, hesitation creeping into his tone. “He brought federal marshals. They have a court-ordered inspection writ for the estate’s secondary ledger systems under the interstate commerce act.”
A court-ordered inspection writ.
My mind raced. Vance didn't care about interstate commerce. He wanted access to my estate’s physical infrastructure—he wanted to get inside the perimeter under the cover of a federal warrant to map my security grid, or worse, to plant something that would give him leverage over my supply chains.
I looked back down at monitor twelve.
On the south terrace, Clara had stopped talking to Matteo. Her head lifted slightly. She wasn't looking at the ocean anymore; she was looking straight up at the dome camera mounted above the terrace door.
As if she could see me through the glass.
“Dominic,” I barked into the mic, standing up from my chair. “Do not let those marshals past the gatehouse. Stall them. I’m coming up.”
I grabbed my shoulder holster, snapping my Sig Sauer into place beneath my suit jacket, and strode out of the control room.
As I rode the private elevator up to the main ground floor, my thoughts spiraled. Vance had chosen today—precisely today—to force his way onto my property. Fourteen months to the day since the car bomb.
It wasn't a coincidence. It was a pressure test.
When the elevator doors slid open into the grand foyer, I expected to find Dominic waiting with the security reports. Instead, standing by the front double doors, looking through the reinforced glass at the approaching black SUVs on the drive, was Clara.
She had left Matteo on the terrace and walked back inside through the side corridor.
“You shouldn't be in the foyer,” I said, my hand instinctively resting near my holster. “Get back to your patient.”
Clara didn't turn around immediately. She watched the black SUVs come to a stop on the gravel courtyard.
“The federal marshals aren't carrying standard inspection warrants, Vincent,” she said calmly, her voice carrying an eerie, chilling certainty.
“How would you know what a federal warrant looks like?” I demanded, closing the distance between us.
Clara turned slowly, her eyes meeting mine without a flicker of fear.
May you like
“Because,” she said softly, “six years ago, I used to write them.”
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