Chapter 9
"Julian?" Mr. Duca asked, his voice laced with absolute, paralyzing disbelief. He pressed his face closer to the cold steel door, his flashlight beam shaking slightly in his hand.
"Duca? Is that you? Thank god, Duca, let me out of here!" the voice on the other side sobbed frantically, the sound of heavy chains rattling against concrete echoing through the steel.
Julian was a former associate, a brilliant but erratic financial cleaner who had worked for Mr. Duca’s syndicate a decade ago. Three years ago, Julian had allegedly stolen millions from a rival cartel and vanished without a trace. The entire criminal underworld assumed he had been tortured and executed. Yet here he was, locked in a modern steel vault inside the walls of Mr. Duca's own home.
"Elias," Mr. Duca spoke rapidly into his earpiece, his heart hammering against his tattooed chest. "It's Julian. Someone has him locked inside a holding cell in the walls."
"Julian? Sir, that’s impossible. We received definitive intel he was dead," Elias responded, his voice thick with confusion. "I am sending the tactical team in right now."
"Hold them," Mr. Duca ordered, sliding his hand over the heavy, modern deadbolt securing the door. "If this is a holding cell, whoever put him here might have rigged the door. Let me check the perimeter first."
"Duca, please!" Julian screamed, coughing violently. "They're going to come back! You have to open it before they come back!"
"Calm down, Julian," Mr. Duca commanded, his authoritative tone cutting through the man's hysteria. "Who put you in here? How long have you been inside my house?"
"I don't know how long!" Julian wept, his voice breaking. "There is no light! They bring me food once a day. They ask me for the account numbers, the ones I took from the Rossi cartel. I didn't steal from you, Duca! I swear it!"
Mr. Duca swept his flashlight over the heavy deadbolt. There were no wires, no explosive charges, no digital triggers. It was a simple, brutal mechanical lock designed purely to keep someone inside.
He gripped the thick steel handle of the deadbolt. With a heavy grunt of exertion, leveraging his broad shoulders and muscular arms, Mr. Duca threw the bolt back. It slid open with a deafening, metallic screech that echoed violently through the stone corridors.
He grabbed the handle and pulled the heavy steel door open.
The smell that rolled out of the dark room was horrific—a mix of sweat, fear, and human waste. Mr. Duca raised his flashlight, flooding the small concrete cell with blinding white light.
Julian was chained to a heavy pipe in the corner of the room. He was a shell of the man Mr. Duca remembered. His hair was long and matted, his clothes reduced to filthy rags, and his fair skin was bruised and pale from years of total darkness. He threw his hands up, shielding his eyes from the agonizing light of the flashlight.
"You found me," Julian wept, crawling forward until the heavy chains pulled taut against his ankles. "I knocked... I heard a machine stop running out there... I just knocked."
Mr. Duca stepped into the cell, his mind racing to process the sheer audacity of the crime. Someone had bypassed his billion-dollar security grid to construct a black-site prison inside his walls.
"Julian," Mr. Duca said, crouching down beside the broken man. "Who are they? Who has been holding you here?"
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Julian lowered his hands slightly, squinting through the harsh light. A sudden, terrifying realization seemed to wash over his battered face. He looked past Mr. Duca, staring at the open steel door.
"Wait," Julian whispered, his voice suddenly dropping to a dead, hollow monotone. "You opened the door from the outside?"
