Chapter 3 - Shadows in the Glass
Dominic let out a sharp cry of agony, clutching his broken wrist as Marcus pinned him to the floor with a knee driven deep between his shoulder blades. The remaining four associates drew their suppressed sidearms in a flash, aiming them directly at Dominic’s head.
Elena gasped, pulling Noah tighter against her chest, pressing the boy’s face into her apron so he wouldn't see the violence unfolding in the warm lamplight. Noah held his stuffed rabbit tight, his small shoulders tense.
Vincent stepped forward, his polished shoes stopping inches from Dominic’s face. He bent down, picked up the silver key fob from the rug, and examined it with cold, analytical precision.
"A long-range radio relay," Vincent observed quietly, holding the device up to the light. "You weren't arming the device, Dominic. You were sending an authorization ping to someone waiting outside the building."
Dominic panted heavily, tears of pain mixing with sweat on his fair skin. "Vincent... please... they have my wife! They picked her up in Queens this morning! They said if I didn't place the relay, they’d send her back to me in a box!"
Vincent lowered his gaze, his expression entirely devoid of sympathy. "Who are 'they', Dominic?"
"The coalition..." Dominic gasped out, struggling for air under Marcus's weight. "The syndicate board from Chicago... they hired a private contractor... they knew you were going to audit the dock ledgers tonight..."
Vincent’s mind moved with terrifying speed. He looked back at the mahogany desk, where the red light beneath the drawer was still pulsing with an accelerated rhythm. If Dominic was telling the truth, he had only placed the secondary relay—which meant someone else had brought the actual explosive charge into the building earlier in the day.
Vincent turned his head slowly, looking past his associates toward the floor-to-ceiling glass windows where the city lights glowed in the night. He looked down at Elena, who was shivering uncontrollably on the rug.
"Elena," Vincent called out softly.
She looked up, her eyes wide with terror, her face pale. "Y-yes, Mr. Caruso?"
"Who cleaned this office this afternoon before your shift began?" Vincent asked.
Elena swallowed hard, her mind racing through the afternoon schedule. "It... it was the contract deep-clean crew... the team from the medical supply company. A woman with blonde hair led them..."
Noah peeked out from behind his mother's apron, his bright eyes looking up at Vincent. "The lady with the yellow hair gave me candy," the boy whispered innocently. "She went under the big table to fix the wires."
Vincent’s jaw set like iron. The pieces were locking into place with lethal accuracy. The bomber hadn't been an insider—it had been an outside operative disguised as maintenance staff, using Dominic’s coerced access code to bypass the lower security checkpoints.
Vincent turned to Marcus. "Check the executive elevator logs. Find out which security terminal authorized the deep-clean crew's clearance codes at three o'clock."
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Marcus pulled his tactical tablet from his inner jacket pocket, his thumb flying across the encrypted screen. A second later, Marcus’s face went entirely pale, his confident demeanor vanishing instantly.
"Boss..." Marcus stammered, looking up at Vincent with wide, disbelieving eyes. "The clearance code didn't come from Dominic's terminal. It came from my personal master key."
