Chapter 3 - The Ghost in the Records
Down in the subterranean security vault of the Varric estate, the monitors hummed with cold blue light.
Matteo slammed the micro-bug and the antique key onto the metal inspection table. Standing across from him were his two most trusted enforcers, Dominic and Marcus, alongside the head of his private intelligence unit, a nervous, graying man named Callahan.
“Explain to me how a piece of listening hardware sat under my son’s crib for three weeks while twenty armed guards patrolled this perimeter,” Matteo growled, his voice a low, terrifying rumble.
Callahan tapped furiously at his console, pulling up system logs, architectural blueprints, and staff clearance schedules.
“Boss, the bug’s transmission frequency is localized,” Callahan explained, his fingers flying across the keys. “It doesn’t connect to external cell towers or satellite uplinks. It transmits to a short-range receiver within a half-mile radius—meaning whoever planted it had to be receiving the audio feed from somewhere inside the estate boundaries, or from a vehicle parked near the East gate.”
“A vehicle,” Matteo echoed. “Whose vehicle enters the East gate without random inspection?”
Dominic stepped forward, folding his arms across his broad chest. “Only three people have permanent clearance for the East service entrance: the maintenance contractors, the grocery delivery vendors, and... internal staff.”
Matteo’s eyes narrowed. He thought of the new maid. Liana Graves.
She had arrived yesterday morning, carrying a single worn duffel bag, possessing forged or hastily updated employment references approved by the estate's aging human resources manager, Mrs. Gable. She had claimed she needed work immediately, asking no questions about salary, offering no complaints about the brutal hours.
And yet, within twenty minutes of walking into the mansion, she had walked straight into a crisis, calmed a child no one else could touch, and immediately directed them to look under the crib slats where the bug was hidden.
Too convenient, a voice in Matteo’s head hissed. An assassin doesn’t always look like a killer. Sometimes they look like a grieving, quiet woman who knows too much.
“Bring me her file,” Matteo commanded.
Marcus hurried to the filing cabinet, pulling out a manila folder and sliding it across the table.
Matteo flipped it open.
Liana Graves. Age twenty-four. Born in upstate New York. Previous employment: retail clerk, hotel housekeeper, local diner waitress. No criminal record.
But as Matteo’s eyes scanned down the parchment, his finger stopped at a specific entry in the medical annex records attached to her background check.
Child: Leo Graves. Deceased twenty-two days ago. Cause of death: Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) at St. Jude’s Memorial Hospital.
Matteo stared at the date.
Twenty-two days ago.
The exact same week Nico’s behavior had changed. The exact same week the intruder had slipped into the nursery.
Matteo’s breath hitched. Coincidences on this scale did not exist in his world. In the mafia, coincidences were bullets with names on them.
“Callahan,” Matteo said quietly.
“Yes, boss?”
“Dig deeper into her medical records. I want to know everything about St. Jude’s Memorial Hospital, the doctor who signed the death certificate, and every financial transaction associated with her family in the last three months.”
May you like
“On it,” Callahan replied.
Matteo turned away from the monitors, his heart pounding with a dark, suffocating suspicion. Liana Graves was hiding something massive. And he was going to tear her life apart piece by piece until he found out what it was.
