Chapter 1 - The Silver Watch
Damian stared at the heavy silver pocket watch resting in his palm.
The worn metal felt impossibly cold against his skin.
It belonged to a ghost.
His father, Anthony Romano, had died of a massive heart attack twenty-two years ago.
The watch had vanished on the exact same night.
Now, a barefoot three-year-old girl named Mia had carried it past thirty-eight armed guards.
Luca Marino stood frozen on the gravel path.
The hardened underboss looked completely terrified.
He demanded to know how a toddler could breach the most secure estate in Pennsylvania.
Damian gently shifted the sleeping girl into his left arm.
He kept his right hand firmly wrapped around the grip of his pistol.
He told Luca to lock down the entire perimeter immediately.
No one was allowed to leave the compound alive.
Damian carried Mia through the manicured gardens toward the main mansion.
His mind raced with impossible scenarios.
Thirty-eight men on rotation could not all be blind.
Motion sensors did not simply fail to register a living human being.
Someone inside his own organization had deliberately opened the gates for her.
They reached the heavy mahogany doors of the mansion.
Damian bypassed the luxurious living room and headed straight for the underground security bunker.
Rows of glowing monitors displayed every angle of the massive estate.
A terrified security technician was frantically typing on a keyboard.
Damian laid the sleeping child on a leather sofa.
He walked up behind the technician and placed his gun on the metal desk.
He demanded to see the surveillance footage from the last hour.
The technician pulled up the camera feed from the front gate.
The screen showed absolutely nothing but empty pavement.
The time stamp jumped from nine in the morning straight to ten.
A full sixty minutes of security footage had been completely erased.
Damian felt a cold knot form in his stomach.
He asked the technician who had authorized the deletion.
The young man swallowed hard and pulled up the system logs.
He pointed a shaking finger at the computer screen.
The system required a master passcode to delete encrypted video files.
The technician whispered that the code used was highly classified.
Damian leaned closer to read the screen.
His blood turned to pure ice.
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The passcode used to wipe the cameras belonged to Anthony Romano.
The dead man's code had been inactive for twenty-two years.
