Chapter 4 - The Circle of Five
The air in the executive office turned into ice.
The four associates standing against the wall instantly shifted their weapons away from Dominic, aiming them directly at Marcus. Marcus did not raise his gun; he stood frozen beside the kneeling accountant, staring at his tablet screen as if it had turned into a venomous snake.
"Vincent... I swear to God," Marcus said, his voice dropping into a desperate, intense whisper. "I didn't authorize any maintenance crew. I haven't left your side since eight this morning."
"Your master key card was used at the basement security hub at precisely 3:12 PM," Julian said, his suppressed pistol steady as he aimed it at Marcus's chest. "You're the only one with level-five access, Marcus."
"Someone cloned my chip!" Marcus shouted, his fair face flushing with rage. "You know how easy it is to scrape an RFID signal if you get close enough in the garage!"
Vincent raised his hand slightly. The four associates remained locked in their firing positions, but nobody pulled a trigger. The absolute authority of Vincent Caruso held the room together by a single thread.
Vincent walked slowly to the bookshelf lining the east wall of the office. He reached out, pulled a gold-embossed leather volume of Dante's Inferno, and pressed a hidden hydraulic latch concealed behind the wooden spine.
With a soft, heavy hiss, a three-foot section of the dark wood paneling slid open, revealing a hidden, reinforced sanctuary room built into the core structure of the building. Inside was a small mahogany desk, two leather chairs, a bank of private security monitors, and an armory rack holding tactical gear.
Vincent turned to Elena. "Take your son inside that room, Elena. Sit down and do not touch anything."
Elena didn't ask questions. She scooped Noah up into her arms, clutching him tight against her chest, and hurried through the hidden doorway into the sanctuary.
As Elena stepped inside, her eyes caught a large, gilded photo frame hanging on the wall above the desk. The photograph showed a stunning young woman in a white lace dress with fair skin and soft brown hair, standing on the deck of a yacht. Hanging around her neck was an antique gold locket shaped like a star.
Elena gasped, her hand instinctively reaching up to touch her own collarbone. She pulled a small silver chain out from beneath her shirt—hanging from it was an identical, antique gold star locket that her late mother had given her on her deathbed.
Before she could process the impossible coincidence, the heavy wood paneling slid shut, locking her and Noah inside the soundproof sanctuary.
Through the two-way glass mirror embedded in the sanctuary wall, Elena could see into the main office. Vincent was standing before his six men, his black fedora tilted low over his face as he pulled a small gold key from his vest pocket.
He walked over to the mahogany desk, crouched down beside the pulsing red light, and inserted the gold key into a tiny maintenance slot on the side of the device.
The blinking red light instantly shifted to a solid, unblinking green.
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Through the wall speaker in the sanctuary, a cold synthetic voice chimed from the device: BIOMETRIC OVERRIDE ENGAGED. OVERRIDE AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED WITHIN SIXTY SECONDS.
Vincent stood up slowly, looking at his men with a cold, terrifying smile. "The device wasn't set to detonate, gentlemen. It was set to download the master biometrics of the Caruso family."
