Chapter 5 - Blood on the Marble
The basement corridors of the Rosetti estate were cast in perpetual shadow, illuminated only by the faint red glow of emergency exit signs.
I kept my footsteps light, hugging the damp stone walls as I descended the spiral staircase toward the main server room.
The heavy iron door of the server vault stood slightly ajar, a thin sliver of white fluorescent light spilling out onto the polished concrete floor.
I crept closer, holding my breath, until I could hear the distinct sound of frantic typing echoing from inside the room.
"Damn it, the encryption protocol changed," a voice hissed angrily.
It wasn't Julian Gallo.
I peered around the heavy steel frame and saw Miller, the head maintenance contractor, hunched over the master terminal, sweat pouring down his neck.
He was frantically trying to download the entire master surveillance archive onto a high-capacity encrypted thumb drive.
"Looking for something?" I asked, stepping out of the shadows and raising the Beretta with a steady hand.
Miller froze instantly, his fingers hovering half an inch above the keyboard like spiders caught in a web.
He slowly turned his head around, his eyes wide with stark terror as he stared down the barrel of the gun.
"Mr... Mr. Vance," Miller stammered, swallowing hard. "I can explain. I was just—"
"You were just finishing what you started in that alley three nights ago," I cut him off, stepping fully into the room and kicking the chair away from the console.
Miller stumbled backward, hitting the server rack with a dull thud. "Julian made me do it! He said if I didn't grab the kid and leave her in the alley, my family would pay the price!"
"Julian Gallo gave you the order," a cold, smooth voice echoed from the dark hallway behind me.
Before I could turn around, a heavy metallic object slammed into the side of my head, sending white-hot pain exploding behind my eyes.
I crashed hard onto the concrete floor, my vision blurring as the Beretta clattered out of my hand and slid across the smooth surface.
Through the haze of dizziness, I looked up and saw Marcus Vance, the head of security and my supposed ally, standing over me with a heavy steel flashlight in his hand.
"Marcus?" I managed to choke out, tasting the bitter tang of blood on my tongue.
"You really thought an accountant could outplay us?" Marcus asked, offering a cold, mocking smirk as he bent down to retrieve the dropped firearm.
Miller scrambled up from the floor, clutching the thumb drive like a lifeline. "Is the download complete?"
"Forget the download," Marcus snapped, leveling the Beretta directly at my chest. "Dominic is already on his way down here. We finish this right now and make it look like Vance was the inside man all along."
My heart hammered against my ribs, the pain in my chest flaring into a white-hot agony that had nothing to do with the blow to my head.
I had walked into a trap of my own making, underestimating just how deep the rot inside the Rosetti empire went.
Marcus cocked the hammer of the gun, his finger tightening slowly around the trigger.
"Any last words, accountant?" Marcus sneered, his eyes filled with absolute coldness.
"Yeah," I whispered, coughing up a drop of dark blood onto the concrete. "You should have checked the security logs on the secondary backup server."
Marcus frowned for a fraction of a second, his confidence faltering. "What are you talking about?"
Suddenly, the heavy iron door of the server room was kicked open with a thunderous crash that rattled the walls.
Dominic Rosetti stood in the doorway, flanked by four armed guards, his face carved from dark, absolute wrath.
"Drop the weapon, Marcus," Dominic commanded, his voice carrying the terrifying authority of a king ordering an execution.
Marcus spun around, frantically trying to raise the gun toward Dominic, but he was already too late.
Three silenced shots rang out in rapid succession in the enclosed space.
Marcus dropped his weapon, his eyes locked in sheer disbelief as he collapsed backward against the server racks, sliding down into a growing pool of dark blood.
Miller dropped to his knees, throwing his hands over his head and screaming for mercy as the guards pinned him face-down to the floor.
Dominic didn't even look at the dying head of security.
He walked slowly past the wreckage, his gaze fixing entirely on me as I lay bleeding on the cold concrete floor.
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He reached down, gripping my arm with surprising gentleness, and hauled me back up onto my feet.
"You always did have a knack for finding the ledger, Arthur," Dominic said quietly, looking at the blood on my face. "Now, let's go settle accounts with my brother-in-law."
