Chapter 3 - The Traitor In The Ranks
The silence in the locked bedroom was lethal.
If anyone in the underworld had seen the look on my face at that exact moment, they would have fled the country. The cold, calculated Julian Mercer was gone. What replaced him was a beast craving blood.
"Victor," I breathed out, the name tasting like ash in my mouth.
Marisol watched me carefully. She didn't panic at the sudden, dark shift in my demeanor. She didn't cower like the others would have. "Tonight," she said, pulling my attention back to the present. "Victor came by the estate. He told the guards he was picking up some files for you. But he didn't go to the study."
"He went to the boys' wing," I finished for her, the pieces snapping together.
"He stood outside their door," Marisol nodded. "He jiggled the handle. He whispered to them through the wood. He said, 'I know you're awake, little mice.'"
My vision went red. Victor knew the boys saw him that night. He had been playing psychological warfare with my children, waiting for the right moment to eliminate the only witnesses to his treason. And I had been too busy running my empire to see it.
I stood up abruptly, pulling my encrypted phone from my inner suit pocket. "What are you going to do?" Marisol asked, her voice tight but composed.
"I'm going to do what I do best," I said coldly. "I'm going to clean house."
I dialed Marcus, my head of security, a man whose loyalty belonged solely to me, not the syndicate. "Boss?" Marcus answered on the first ring.
"Marcus. Pull the security footage for the boys' hallway from exactly one hour ago," I ordered.
There was a pause, followed by the clacking of a keyboard. Then, a sharp intake of breath. "Boss... the footage is wiped. Ten minutes of dead air."
"I know," I said. "Lock down the perimeter. No one goes in, no one goes out. If Victor tries to leave the compound, shoot him in the kneecaps and drag him to the basement."
"Understood."
I hung up and looked back at the bed. My boys were watching me with wide, fearful eyes. They knew what I was. They knew the violence that surrounded my name.
I walked slowly back to the bed and knelt so I was eye-level with them. "Leo. Mateo. Luca," I said, my voice cracking for the first time in a decade. "I am so sorry."
Leo reached out with a trembling hand and touched my shoulder. "Are you going to make the shadow man go away, Papa?"
May you like
"Yes," I promised, pressing a kiss to his forehead. "He will never, ever come near this family again." I stood up and looked at Marisol. "Stay in this room. Do not open this door for anyone but me. Do you understand?"
She nodded once. "Bring him down, Julian."
