Chapter 13 - The Hunt Within the Walls
The clock was ticking. I didn't wake Gabriel immediately; a man consumed by rage would only burn the house down to find a single spark. Instead, I used my knowledge of the estate’s inner workings—the servants' corridors, the hidden service stairwells, and the domestic logs—to track down the mole within the household staff.
According to the staff registry, only one person had requested access to the grand ballroom service wing late that evening: Thomas, a newly hired butler recommended by Leo Vain’s faction just two weeks before the wedding anniversary.
I moved silently through the dim, labyrinthine hallways of the estate’s lower service level, my left arm steady inside its hidden brace. I reached the reinforced door of the grand ballroom cellar.
The heavy oak door was cracked open an inch. A faint beam of amber light cut across the dusty floor.
I peered through the crack. Inside, Thomas was kneeling beside the main structural pillar supporting the ballroom floor, meticulously unrolling a compact, high-grade military explosive wired to a digital remote timer.
“A bit cliché, don't you think?” I asked, stepping smoothly out of the shadows with a small, suppressed pistol gripped firmly in my right hand, leveling it squarely at his chest.
Thomas froze, his hands hovering over the device. He slowly turned his head, his eyes widening in sheer terror as he recognized the boss's wife.
“Mrs. Russo... I—I was just—”
“Saving you the trouble of explaining,” a deep, terrifying voice echoed from the doorway behind him.
May you like
Gabriel stepped into the cellar, flanked by Marcus and two armed enforcers. His face was a mask of cold, lethal fury. He had noticed my absence, followed my trail, and arrived just in time to watch the final pieces of the puzzle snap into place.
Thomas didn't even have time to scream before Marcus’s men hauled him off the floor, disarming the explosive in seconds. Gabriel walked past the struggling traitor, his dark eyes locked entirely on me.
