Chapter 3 - Lockdown on Hawthorne Hill
“Lock the gates!” Dean roared across the banquet hall.
His voice broke the spell that had frozen the room.
Four security captains bolted toward the heavy arched exits.
The radio channels crackled with sudden, chaotic static.
“Code Black on all perimeters!” Dean shouted into his lapel microphone.
“Nobody leaves the grounds!”
“Search the service tunnels, the wine cellar, and the garage!”
“If Victor Shaw reaches the main road, someone answers for it with their blood!”
The remaining guests at the long table began to murmur in rising panic.
Men who commanded millions in street revenue looked around like trapped rats.
Old Henry Romano sat motionless at the head of the table.
He picked up his hearing aids from beside the butter knife and placed them carefully into his pocket.
He didn't need to hear the chaos.
He had orchestrated enough executions in his life to understand the rhythm of betrayal.
He looked at Dean and gave a slow, deliberate nod toward Anna.
The instruction was unmistakable.
The girl was the only surviving witness to Michael Reed’s legacy.
She was no longer an accidental bystander.
She was the primary target.
Dean walked over to Anna and grabbed her firmly by the upper arm.
His grip was tight, but it was not hostile.
It was the grip of a man securing a valuable asset under mortar fire.
“On your feet,” Dean ordered.
“I can’t,” Anna breathed, her chest heaving as hyperventilation set in.
“My mother is out there, someone is hunting her, I have to go to her apartment—”
“If you go to that apartment right now, you’ll find a clean up crew waiting to put a bullet behind your ear,” Dean said.
He hauled her up until her eyes were level with his.
His dark gaze was fierce, unyielding, and utterly focused.
“Your mother hung up because she knows the protocol.”
“If she has half the brains your father had, she’s already changed cars and ditched her primary cell phone.”
“You stay with me, or you end up in a shallow trench by sunrise.”
Dean did not wait for her consent.
He pulled her through the heavy mahogany side door into the private residential wing.
The noise of the banquet hall vanished behind thick oak panels.
They moved quickly down a carpeted corridor lined with oil paintings of dead Romano ancestors.
Anna stumbled, her cheap flats sliding against the floorboards.
“Why are you doing this?” Anna gasped, trying to keep pace with his long strides.
“You don’t even know me.”
“Your family probably killed my father!”
Dean didn't stop.
He kicked open the door to a private underground garage beneath the east wing.
The smell of gasoline, damp concrete, and motor oil filled the air.
Parked in the center stall was a matte black armored SUV with reinforced glass and heavy tires.
“My family didn't kill Michael Reed,” Dean said, unlocking the vehicle with a remote click.
“If my grandfather had ordered Michael’s death, it would have been handled with a bullet in an alley, not an arson job that burned down a suburban neighborhood.”
He opened the passenger door and shoved Anna inside.
“Arson is sloppy,” Dean continued as he climbed into the driver’s seat and fired the engine.
The V8 roared to life with a deep, muffled growl.
“Arson is what cowards use when they want to destroy evidence before an audit.”
“Victor Shaw worked with my father and the council elders eighteen years ago.”
“If Victor ran tonight, it means he’s guilty of something that goes back before I even took this seat.”
Dean engaged the transmission and slammed his foot on the accelerator.
The heavy SUV surged forward, smashing through the heavy wooden gate of the private service exit.
Rain slammed against the reinforced windshield in sheets.
The tires gripped the slick asphalt of the winding driveway as they cleared the estate perimeter.
Anna looked out the side window, her reflection pale and ghostly against the dark glass.
“Who was my father to you?” she asked, her voice hollow.
Dean glanced in the rearview mirror, checking the dark road behind them for pursuit headlights.
“Your father was the only man my grandfather trusted with the true ledgers.”
“The Romano family doesn't keep bank accounts in public institutions.”
“Every asset, every bribe, every real estate title was recorded in a cipher system designed by Michael Reed.”
“Eighteen years ago, those ledgers vanished.”
“The official story was that Michael stole twenty million dollars, went into hiding, and died when his safehouse burned down by accident.”
Dean turned the vehicle sharply onto the dark interstate heading toward the city center.
“My grandfather accepted that story because Victor Shaw brought him the charred remnants of the ledger box.”
“For eighteen years, we thought your father was a thief who got burned by his own greed.”
Anna closed her eyes as tears finally spilled down her cheeks.
“He was an electrician,” she whispered in agony.
“He came home with dirt on his hands and calluses on his palms.”
“He read me bedtime stories about dragons.”
“He wasn't a criminal.”
“He wasn't a criminal,” Dean agreed, his tone surprisingly soft for a fraction of a second.
“He was an accountant who realized too late that the men he worked for were monsters.”
The SUV tore through the midnight storm, cutting through the neon reflection of the city skyline.
Dean’s dashboard phone lit up with an encrypted ping.
It was Marco, his personal intelligence specialist stationed at their downtown communications hub.
Dean tapped the steering wheel button.
“Speak.”
“Dean, Victor’s vehicle just tripped a traffic camera near the harbor,” Marco’s voice crackled through the speakers.
“He didn't use the highway.”
“He took the old industrial access road.”
“And there’s something else.”
Dean tightened his grip on the leather wrapped wheel.
“What is it?”
May you like
“The municipal archives server for the county fire department just experienced a catastrophic database wipe thirty minutes ago.”
“Someone just deleted every single digital backup of the Reed residential fire from eighteen years ago.”
