Chapter 5 - The Ghost of the Sister
The office felt smaller now,
as if the walls were leaning in,
suffocating everyone inside with the weight of the past.
Aleandro turned toward the portrait of his sister,
Sofia,
who had died in a "car accident" five years ago,
a wound that had never truly healed.
He walked to the frame,
his hands cold and steady,
and ripped it from the wall with a violence that made Maria gasp.
He turned it over,
and there,
yellowed with age but still functional,
was another device,
older and more primitive than the one Isabella had planted.
He felt a sickening wave of realization wash over him;
Sofia hadn't been killed by a rival’s bomb or a drunk driver.
She had been listened to,
tracked,
and executed because of a leak inside his own house.
"Who was the other lady,
Emma?"
he asked,
his voice a hollowed-out rasp.
The child looked at her mother,
who was now weeping silently,
clutching her apron with shaking hands.
"It was the woman who worked here before us,"
Emma whispered.
"The one with the gray hair and the heavy keys."
Mrs. Gable,
the old housekeeper who had retired to Italy four years ago,
a woman his father had trusted with his life.
Aleandro felt the world he had built—his empire,
his safety,
his family—dissolve into a pile of ash and deception.
He had been surrounded by vipers since he was a boy,
and he had invited the most dangerous one into his bed.
He looked at Isabella,
who was staring at the second device with a look of pure,
unadulterated shock.
"I didn't know about that,"
she choked out,
her voice raw from crying.
"I swear,
Aleandro,
I thought I was the first."
"You weren't the first,
and if I hadn't found out,
you wouldn't have been the last,"
he said,
his anger cooling into a dead,
black diamond of intent.
He looked at Marco,
who was standing by the door,
his face a mask of professional stoicism,
though his eyes were burning with a need for vengeance.
"Marco,
get the girls to a safe house,
double the guard,
no one in or out without my personal code,"
he ordered,
referring to Maria and Emma.
"And Isabella?"
Marco asked,
his hand moving toward his sidearm,
a silent question in his eyes.
Aleandro looked at the woman who had been his world,
seeing the fear and the beauty and the lies all tangled together.
"Lock her in the bedroom,"
he said.
"And bring me the phone she used to call them."
"I want to hear the voice of the man who thinks he owns my house."
As Marco led the women away,
the office became truly quiet for the first time in hours.
Aleandro stood in the center of the room,
surrounded by the broken ghosts of his family,
holding a device that had stolen his sister’s life.
He felt a cold,
hollow clarity settling over him,
the kind of clarity that comes before a massacre.
He had been the king of silence,
but now,
he was going to become the architect of a scream that the whole city would hear.
He picked up the phone that Marco had retrieved from Isabella’s bag,
the screen still glowing with the last message she had sent.
He hit the call button,
bringing the plastic to his ear,
listening to the ringing that sounded like a ticking clock.
On the third ring,
a voice answered,
smooth and arrogant,
a voice that didn't know it was already dead.
"Is it done?"
the voice asked.
Aleandro smiled,
a terrifying,
bloodless expression that would have made a devil flinch.
May you like
"It’s just beginning,"
he said.
