Chapter 4 - The Shadow in the Courtyard
Rachel knew she couldn't take the vial to Kalin Caruso directly. In his current state of paranoia, a maid claiming his personal doctor was poisoning his daughter would end with two bullets in her chest before she finished her sentence. Mafia bosses did not tolerate sudden revelations from staff members with five-week-old references.
She needed proof that led straight to the architect of the betrayal.
At two in the morning, the mansion slept. Rain battered the slate roofs, drowning out the ambient city noise. Rachel slipped out of the servants' quarters dressed in dark wool trousers and a black long-sleeved shirt, her blonde hair tucked securely beneath a watch cap.
She moved through the second-floor gallery without making a sound, stepping over the floorboards she had already memorized during her afternoon cleaning rounds. She bypassed the motion sensors by following the exact blind line cast by the crown molding.
When she reached the surveillance terminal near the east terrace, the door was already cracked open. A sliver of blue monitor light cut across the dark floor.
Inside, Dario was leaning over the primary terminal, copying security override codes onto an external hard drive. His service pistol sat on the console beside a half-eaten sandwich.
“Three minutes until the perimeter sweep,” Dario whispered into his headset. “The north gate camera will loop for eight minutes. That’s your window to bring the transport van into the service garage.”
“And the Caruso girl?” a harsh voice crackled through his earpiece.
“She’s out of it. She won't know she’s leaving until she wakes up in your warehouse. Without her, Kalin signs over the waterfront terminals by dawn or he gets her back in a crate.”
Rachel didn't wait.
She stepped into the doorway, her footsteps soundless against the rubber floor mats. “You have terrible manners, Dario.”
Dario spun around, his hand lunging toward the pistol on the desk.
Before his fingers could graze the grip, Rachel closed the distance in two explosive strides. Her palm struck his wrist upward, knocking the gun skittering across the tile. Her left elbow whipped across his jaw with the brutal, practiced efficiency of a military operative.
Dario’s head snapped back, his teeth clattering together. Blood sprayed against the monitors. He stumbled backward into the swivel chair, groaning in shock as he looked up into the face of the clumsy maid who had dropped a mop bucket two weeks earlier.
“Who the hell are you?” he choked out, reaching for the combat knife strapped to his boot.
Rachel stepped forward, pinned his boot to the floor with her heel, and drove the heel of her hand into his throat with just enough pressure to cut off his airway without crushing his windpipe. Dario gasped, clawing at her fingers, his eyes bulging in pure terror.
“Someone who knows what a dead man looks like,” Rachel whispered into his ear. “You touched that little girl’s medicine. You sold out the house that feeds you. Tell me who hired you, or I’ll snap your hyoid bone and drop you down the laundry chute.”
Dario wheezed, his fingers clawing at the collar of his shirt. “Don... Don Falcone... he paid three hundred grand... he’s already inside the perimeter—”
Before Dario could finish, the sharp, deafening blast of an alarm siren tore through the mansion. Red strobe lights flashed through the corridors.
Dario slammed his heel into Rachel’s knee in desperation, rolling away toward the balcony doors. “Intruder!” he screamed into the hall. “Intruder on the second floor!”
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Rachel didn't chase him. She heard the heavy, rhythmic thuds of Kalin’s guards mobilizing down the hall. But more importantly, she heard the one sound that mattered: a frightened cry echoing from the bedroom at the end of the east wing.
Sophia was awake. And the wolves were already inside the gates.
