Chapter 11 - THE WATCH IN THE DARK
Time seemed to slow down.
The man in the doctor's coat raised the gun, aiming it directly at Thomas in the hospital bed.
Eleanor screamed, diving over her husband to shield him.
I didn't think. I just reacted.
I grabbed the heavy metal IV pole next to the bed and swung it with everything I had.
The heavy steel base slammed into the assassin's shoulder just as he pulled the trigger.
Pfft.
The bullet shattered the hospital window instead of hitting Thomas.
The man grunted, stumbling sideways. He dropped the gun, but immediately lunged toward me, a hunting knife slipping from his sleeve.
I scrambled backward, but he grabbed my apron, pulling me toward the blade.
Suddenly, a massive weight slammed into the assassin from behind.
It was Matteo.
He hadn't left the hospital.
Matteo drove the man into the wall, shattering the plaster. He grabbed the assassin's wrist, twisting it violently until the knife clattered to the floor. With one brutal punch, the man slumped unconscious against the baseboards.
Matteo stood over him, breathing heavily, rubbing his bruised knuckles.
“I knew Marco wouldn't leave loose ends,” Matteo said coldly.
He looked at me. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” I gasped, clutching my chest. “How did you know to come back?”
Matteo reached into his pocket.
“Because Marco didn't have his phone when he was arrested at O'Hare.”
He pulled out a sleek, black encrypted cell phone.
“The police found this in Vanessa’s bag at the mansion. I took it before they logged it as evidence.”
Matteo unlocked the screen.
“Look at the last sent message.”
I leaned in.
The text was sent to an unknown number just minutes before we confronted Vanessa.
It read: Burn the cottage. Kill the old man in the hospital. The backup triggers at midnight.
My stomach dropped.
“Midnight?” I whispered. “Your mother’s letter said 48 hours!”
“My mother didn't know Marco accelerated the timeline,” Matteo said grimly.
He looked at his father’s gold pocket watch.
“It’s 10:00 PM. We have exactly two hours before Marco’s server sends the digital ledger to the Commission.”
“Where is the server?” Eleanor cried out, terrified.
Matteo stared at the unconscious assassin on the floor.
“It’s not in a server farm. It’s offline. A dead-man’s switch.”
He looked at me.
“Marco is paranoid. He wouldn't trust the cloud. The backup is physical, plugged into a timer. And it’s somewhere nobody would ever look.”
“Where?” I asked.
Matteo’s eyes darkened.
“The one place the police have already cleared. The place Vanessa thought she secured tonight.”
He grabbed his coat.
“The west wing of my mansion.”
Matteo called his private security team to lock down the hospital floor. Four heavily armed guards arrived within minutes, standing outside Eleanor and Thomas's door.
“Stay here, Claire,” Matteo commanded.
“No,” I said firmly. “I know that mansion better than anyone. I clean it. If there’s a hidden safe in the west wing, I know where it is.”
Matteo hesitated, then nodded. “Let’s go.”
We raced back to the DeLuca estate.
The police had finished processing the scene and left. The mansion was completely dark, eerily silent, wrapped in the cold Chicago night.
We entered through the kitchen, using flashlights to navigate the cavernous halls.
“The west wing was my father’s private study,” Matteo whispered as we walked. “Vanessa insisted on renovating it last month. She said it was for our future nursery.”
“She was building a vault,” I realized.
We reached the heavy oak doors of the west wing.
Matteo pushed them open.
The room was stripped bare, covered in plastic tarps from the unfinished renovations.
But in the center of the floor, the heavy Persian rug had been pulled back.
Beneath it was a solid steel floor safe.
A laptop sat on top of it, connected to a heavy ethernet cable running into the wall.
The screen glowed ominously in the dark.
A countdown timer was ticking across the screen.
00:45:00... 00:44:59...
Forty-five minutes until the files sent.
Matteo knelt by the laptop. He tried to exit the program, but the screen was locked behind a complex cryptographic wall.
“I can't stop it from the computer,” Matteo grunted. “I have to destroy the physical hard drive inside the safe.”
He examined the steel dial on the floor.
“It’s a biometric lock, combined with a six-digit pin.”
Matteo stood up, frustrated. “Only Marco or Vanessa can open this.”
I stared at the keypad.
“Mr. DeLuca,” I said softly.
I remembered something.
Earlier tonight, when Vanessa was trying to prove the emergency transfer was legal, she threw a document at us.
“Vanessa is incredibly arrogant,” I said, kneeling next to the safe. “She wears her family’s legacy like a crown. Everything she does is tied to her father.”
I looked at the six-digit keypad.
“What was the date her father faked Victoria’s death to take over the syndicate?”
Matteo frowned. “October 14th, 2009.”
“10-14-09,” I whispered.
I typed the numbers into the keypad.
A green light flashed.
The pin was accepted.
But the screen blinked red immediately after.
BIOMETRIC SCAN REQUIRED.
A small thumbprint scanner illuminated on the steel door.
“We’re dead,” Matteo whispered. “We don't have Vanessa’s print.”
I looked at the ticking clock.
May you like
00:41:00.
And then, I remembered the broken item left at the burning cottage.
