Chapter 6 - The Frequency of Betrayal
The heavy oak door of the master study clicked shut, sealing in the faint scent of gunsmoke and shattered glass.
Luca Moretti stood before the mahogany desk, his knuckles pressed flat against the polished wood as he stared down at the black digital transmitter.
The tiny red diode blinked rhythmically in the darkened room, casting an eerie crimson pulse across the stack of confiscated legal papers.
"Run a spectral analysis on the transmission frequency," Luca ordered without turning around.
Daniel Thorne stepped forward, his boots clicking softly against the Persian rug.
"I already had tech dispatch patch into our local array the moment you brought it down from the nursery, Boss."
"And what did you find?"
"It isn't a consumer-grade listening device, Luca."
Daniel pulled a sleek tactical tablet from his inner pocket and tapped the screen twice.
"It's a military-spec encrypted burst transmitter, operating on a frequency usually reserved for secure maritime communications."
Luca's dark eyes narrowed into razor-thin slits.
"Maritime channels."
"Precisely," Daniel confirmed, sliding the tablet across the desk.
"The data isn't being routed through civilian cell towers in Chicago."
"It's bouncing off a satellite relay owned by Sterling Logistics out in Lake Michigan."
The name struck the room like a physical blow.
Viktor Sterling was the patriarch of the Sterling syndicate, a ruthless rival family that had spent the last five years trying to fracture the Moretti shipping monopoly.
"Sterling," Luca muttered, the name tasting like ash on his tongue.
"So Vanessa wasn't just acting out of personal greed or desperation to secure a marriage."
"She was a conduit," Daniel said grimly.
"If she had successfully planted that surrogate child into your household and secured sole executorship of the family trust through her fraudulent clauses—"
"—Viktor Sterling would have effectively acquired controlling interest in Moretti Shipping within six months," Luca finished for him.
The realization did not make Luca raise his voice.
Instead, his silence became absolute, heavier and more suffocating than any explosion of rage.
"What are your orders, Boss?" Daniel asked, his hand resting instinctively on his holster.
"Do we hit Sterling's downtown offices tonight?"
"Not yet," Luca replied, straightening up to his full, imposing height.
"A cornered rat bites blindly."
"Let them think their plant succeeded for another twenty-four hours."
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"Keep the transmitter active, but feed it false audio loops of empty rooms."
"Let's see who comes looking for their missing signal before we dismantle them piece by piece."
