A Little Girl Found a Cuff Link Beneath My Car—Then She Pointed at the Man Missing Its Match.

The fire alarm was blaring throughout the estate by the time Vincent and Frank reached the library. Two Moretti guards lay dead near the bookshelf that concealed the reinforced entrance, but the heavy vault door remained sealed shut from the inside.

Vincent punched the override code into the hidden biometric scanner behind a framed oil painting. The pneumatic seals hissed, and the heavy door swung open.

Alina stood in the center of the vault holding a heavy iron fire poker, her body positioned firmly in front of Mia, who was sitting quietly on an emergency cot clutching her wooden truck. Alina's eyes were wild with terror, but the moment she saw Vincent’s blood-spattered shirt, she lowered the weapon, trembling.

"Vincent! My God, are you hurt?" she cried, rushing toward him.

"It’s not my blood," Vincent said, grabbing her shoulders to steady her. "We have to move right now. The estate is compromised. Frank, bring the armored Suburban around to the underground tunnel exit. We don't take the highway. We use the service roads through Gary."

"Where are we going?" Alina asked, her voice cracking as she scooped Mia into her arms.

"To the one place nobody in this city knows exists," Vincent said grimly. "My grandfather’s hunting cabin in the Indiana dunes."

Ten minutes later, the reinforced black SUV roared out of the concealed tunnel exit half a mile north of the estate, slipping into the blinding downpour without headlights until they reached the tree line. Frank drove with grim concentration, his eyes constantly scanning the mirrors for pursuit, while Vincent sat in the passenger seat with a shotgun across his knees.

In the back, Alina held Mia close to her chest, rocking the little girl gently to soothe her. But Mia wasn't crying. She was staring intently at the front of the vehicle.

"Tall man?" Mia called out softly over the hum of the engine.

Vincent glanced back over his shoulder. "What is it, Mia?"

Mia pointed down at the gap between the passenger seat and the central console. "The little red firefly is blinking at me."

Vincent's brow furrowed. "What firefly?"

"Under your seat," Mia whispered. "It blinks three times, then it sleeps, then it blinks again."

Vincent immediately reached down beneath his leather bucket seat, his fingers probing the metal frame near the carpet floorboards. His fingertips brushed against something small, rectangular, and warm to the touch—attached to the underside of the frame by a powerful rare-earth magnet.

With a sharp jerk, he ripped the device free and held it up to the dashboard light.

It was a military-grade satellite transponder. Its tiny crimson diode pulsed rhythmically: *blink, blink, blink.*

Frank cursed viciously, slamming his fist against the steering wheel. "That car was swept by my personal tech team three hours ago! Nobody touches that vehicle except my inner circle!"

"Which means your inner circle is leaking," Vincent said, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper. "They aren't following us by sight. They’ve been tracking our exact coordinates since we left the garage."

"Throw it out the window!" Alina pleaded, terror returning to her eyes.

"No," Vincent said, his mind calculating several moves ahead with cold brilliance. "If we throw it out, they’ll know we found it and scatter. Frank, where does Route 12 cross the freight train junction?"