Chapter 9
The faint smile on Leander's face vanished instantly. The tender, intimate moment in the nursery shattered, replaced entirely by the cold, calculating reality of his world. He pulled the encrypted smartphone from his pocket, his dark eyes narrowing as he read the incoming message from his intelligence chief.
"Is the sweep complete?" Leander asked, answering the call and raising the phone to his ear. His voice had returned to the icy, lethal cadence of the syndicate boss.
"Boss," the intelligence chief's voice cracked slightly over the secure line. "We broke the encryption on the phone. The intended recipient list for the fabricated audio file wasn't the ruling council."
"Who was it?" Leander demanded smoothly, his jawline clenching tight.
"It was the local media outlets, Boss," the chief reported grimly. "She was setting up an anonymous mass broadcast. But that's not the worst part. We traced the origin IP of the audio file. It came from a secure server inside the estate. Someone on your immediate staff created the forgery for her."
Leander went completely still. The betrayal wasn't just an ambitious fiancée; the rot had infected the very core of his operation.
"Are we identifying the traitor?" Leander asked quietly.
"We are running the server logs now," the chief confirmed. "But Boss... Marcus just found something during the physical sweep. You need to come down to the subterranean parking garage immediately."
Leander hung up the phone and looked back at Adele. The beautiful housemaid was watching him, her expressive brows drawn together in concern.
"Is Caleb safe here?" Leander asked, moving toward the door.
"I won't let anyone in," Adele promised fiercely.
"Do you know the access code to the safe room?" Leander asked, pausing in the doorway.
"Yes," Adele nodded.
"Will you take him there now?" Leander instructed softly. "Will you lock the heavy steel doors from the inside?"
Adele didn't hesitate. She immediately moved toward the sleeping boy.
Leander turned and walked rapidly down the hall, taking the private elevator directly down to the underground parking level.
When the heavy steel doors slid open, Leander stepped out into the cavernous concrete space. Marcus and a team of heavily armed capos were standing near the center of the garage, aiming tactical flashlights at a massive, structural concrete pillar supporting the mansion above.
"What did you find, Marcus?" Leander asked, his polished leather shoes echoing on the concrete.
"They didn't just plant bugs, Boss," Marcus said, his face pale as he stepped aside to reveal the base of the pillar.
Attached to the concrete, wired directly into the estate's primary power grid, was a massive, sophisticated explosive device. The digital timer on the front of the block of C4 was glowing ominously in the dim light.
It was counting down.
"Did they plan to bury us?" Leander murmured, his cold eyes analyzing the explosives.
"Thirty minutes, Boss," Marcus stated urgently. "The bomb squad is en route, but they might not make it in time. We need to evacuate the estate immediately."
Leander stared at the blinking red numbers. The fabricated recording, the engagement dinner, Marielle's sudden panic—it had all been a distraction. A highly coordinated, incredibly expensive distraction designed to keep the entire syndicate focused on the dining room while the bomb was planted beneath them.
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"Are the rival families mobilizing outside the gates?" Leander asked smoothly, calculating the tactical reality of the situation.
"Intelligence reports multiple armed convoys moving toward our sector," Marcus confirmed. "They are waiting for the explosion to blow the gates before they storm the property."
