Chapter 1 - The Black Thing Under the SUV
Dominic moved before Vincent finished speaking.
“Back inside,” he ordered.
Frank started to protest. “Boss, if we miss the consortium meeting—”
Vincent looked at him.
Frank stopped.
Alina scooped Mia into her arms and carried her three steps back from the open front door. The child twisted to keep watching the SUV.
“No,” Mia whispered. “Not car.”
“I know, baby.”
Two security men moved toward the vehicle but stopped when Dominic raised a hand. He called the estate’s mechanic and a police bomb technician Vincent had used before for legitimate corporate events. Nobody touched the SUV.
Vincent remained in the doorway.
He did not pace.
He did not shout.
That somehow made the entrance hall feel tighter.
Mia pressed her face against Alina’s shoulder.
Vincent asked, “Can you show me where the man was?”
Mia pointed beneath the rear passenger side.
“Down there.”
“What did the black thing look like?”
“Like cookie.”
Frank gave a nervous laugh.
Vincent’s eyes shifted toward him.
Frank’s smile disappeared.
Twenty-four minutes later, the technician slid a mirror beneath the vehicle and then stood.
“There’s a device attached under the frame.”
Alina’s heart stopped.
“Explosive?” Dominic asked.
“No.”
The word loosened the room by one breath.
“Tracker,” the technician said. “Commercial grade. Small. Somebody wanted to know where this car went.”
Vincent looked at Mia.
The toddler had both fists buried in Alina’s blouse.
Frank exhaled loudly.
“So it’s a tracker. That’s not exactly an assassination.”
Dominic turned.
“No one said it was.”
Frank’s face changed.
Vincent’s meeting route that morning had been adjusted twice because of construction downtown. The final route existed only in the estate’s secure schedule. A tracker would make the route irrelevant.
Someone could simply follow the car.
Vincent looked at Frank.
“Who had access to this SUV after midnight?”
“Garage staff.”
“How many?”
“Four.”
“Names.”
Frank hesitated.
Vincent’s voice dropped.
“Frank.”
“Me. Owen. Luis. Peter.”
Dominic said, “And anyone with master vehicle access.”
Frank looked toward the marble floor.
Vincent noticed.
“Who?”
“Family executive security.”
“That includes?”
“You. Dominic. Adrian.”
Alina knew that name.
Adrian Marchetti was Vincent’s younger half-brother and chief operating officer of Marchetti Logistics. He rarely came to the estate, but when he did, staff moved faster.
Vincent’s face did not change.
“Pull the cameras.”
Frank rubbed the back of his neck.
“There was a weather outage.”
Dominic stared.
“What?”
“Garage cameras went down during the storm.”
“All of them?”
“For eleven minutes.”
Alina felt Mia stiffen in her arms.
“When?” Vincent asked.
Frank answered quietly.
“Two fourteen to two twenty-five.”
Alina remembered waking around two.
Mia standing at her bedroom window.
Rain crawling down the glass.
She had pulled the child back into bed without asking what she had been watching.
Vincent looked at Alina.
She knew what he was thinking.
Mia had seen the missing eleven minutes.
“I should have listened,” Alina whispered.
Vincent shook his head.
“She is three.”
“I thought she was watching rain.”
“You had no reason to think otherwise.”
Frank said, “Boss, we need to decide about downtown.”
Vincent turned.
“The meeting is canceled.”
Frank blinked. “Adrian is going to lose his mind.”
“Then he can find it.”
Renzo, the estate manager, almost smiled.
Dominic walked toward the security office.
“Come with me, Frank.”
Frank’s face tightened.
“Why?”
“Because I want the access logs.”
“I can send them.”
“I said come.”
Frank followed.
Vincent remained near Alina.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Mia peeked at him.
“Car bad?”
Vincent crouched again.
“The car isn’t bad.”
She frowned.
“The man bad?”
Vincent paused.
Alina watched him choose his answer.
“I don’t know yet.”
That was the first moment she trusted him.
Not because he was powerful.
Because he did not lie to a child simply to sound certain.
Mia reached into the little basket she had been carrying and pulled out a blue plastic dinosaur.
She held it toward him.
“For you.”
Vincent looked at the dinosaur as though no boardroom had ever prepared him for this.
“What does it do?”
“Protect.”
Alina nearly laughed.
Vincent took it.
“Thank you.”
Mia nodded, satisfied.
Then the front doors opened again.
Adrian Marchetti walked in.
He was thirty-six, clean-shaven, elegant, and visibly furious.
“What the hell happened?”
His eyes moved from Vincent to the security men outside, then to Alina and Mia.
“I waited downtown for twenty minutes before someone told me you canceled.”
Vincent held up the small evidence bag the technician had just brought inside.
Adrian stopped.
“What is that?”
“A tracker.”
“On your car?”
“Yes.”
Adrian looked at Frank, who had returned from the hallway with Dominic.
Frank shook his head once.
Too quickly.
Alina noticed.
So did Vincent.
Adrian laughed without humor.
“Let me guess. The child saw a shadow and now half the estate is locked down.”
Mia buried her face against Alina.
Vincent’s voice changed.
“The child saw a man under my car.”
Adrian looked at Mia.
Then at Alina.
“She’s three.”
“So?”
“So three-year-olds dream.”
Mia lifted her head.
“I not dream.”
Adrian sighed.
Vincent stepped between them.
“Do not argue with her.”
Adrian stared at his brother.
“This is insane.”
Dominic entered carrying a tablet.
“No. This is.”
He placed it on the entry table.
The tracker’s inventory number had been traced.
It was not purchased on the street.
It belonged to a security shipment bought six months earlier by Marchetti Logistics.
Adrian’s division.
The room went silent.
Adrian looked at the screen.
Then at Vincent.
“You think I did this?”
“I think somebody with access to my company bought the device.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.”
Vincent’s eyes hardened.
“But it means Mia did not imagine anything.”
Adrian glanced toward the child.
For the first time, he looked uncertain.
Then Alina’s phone vibrated in her apron pocket.
Unknown number.
She opened the message.
A photograph filled the screen.
Mia asleep beside her bedroom window.
Taken from outside.
Taken the previous night.
Below it were nine words.
CHILDREN SHOULD STAY OUT OF GROWN MEN’S BUSINESS.
Alina stopped breathing.
Vincent saw her face.
“What?”
She handed him the phone.
He read the message.
Something cold entered his expression.
Not rage.
Decision.
He looked at Dominic.
“Now we have two problems.”
May you like
Then he looked at Alina.
“And neither of you is going back to that apartment tonight.”
