Chapter 1
Nero had been growling at the same brass vent for eleven minutes.
Olivia knew because she had checked the clock three times.
The massive Cane Corso normally ignored vents, pipes and old walls.
Tonight he clawed beneath one until his nails scraped brass.
“Okay.”
Olivia crouched.
“I’m looking.”
She removed the final screw.
The grille tilted forward.
Something black dropped from the duct.
Not dust.
Not wiring.
A listening device.
Olivia stared.
Then Arthur Vale stepped through the doorway.
His expression changed.
He kicked the device beneath the antique music-box cabinet before Olivia could reach it.
“You’re paid to clean this house, not explore it.”
He shoved her hard against the wall.
Pain shot through her shoulder.
Nero barked.
Arthur turned.
“Control that animal.”
The door opened.
Gabriel Moretti stood there.
Sleeves rolled below tattooed forearms.
Face completely still.
Nero immediately pawed beneath the cabinet.
Gabriel bent and retrieved the device.
Olivia pointed toward the open vent.
“There are more.”
Arthur stepped between Gabriel and the doorway.
Then did something no sane man inside Moretti House should have done.
He ripped the device from Gabriel’s hand.
Threw it against his shoulder.
Punched him across the face.
“For months, we heard every decision before you made it.”
Gabriel steadied himself.
Arthur swung again.
Gabriel slipped it and struck once.
Arthur crashed backward through the music-box cabinet.
A wooden box split open.
Dozens of tiny black memory cards scattered across the carpet.
Caleb appeared.
Saw them.
Lunged.
Nero moved first.
The dog planted himself between Caleb and the cards.
Gabriel drove a kick into Caleb’s torso and sent him through the display shelving.
Then he looked at the memory cards.
At the opened wall panel.
At the narrow dark staircase behind it.
“You weren’t listening to my house.”
His voice barely rose.
“You built a second organization inside it.”
Arthur instinctively looked toward the stairs.
Nero growled.
May you like
And from somewhere below them—
a phone began ringing.
