Chapter 4 - The Ghost in the Machine
Damian stared at the glowing screen of the burner phone.
He pressed the answer button and raised it to his ear.
He did not say a word.
A digitally altered voice crackled through the speaker.
The voice told Damian that the little girl was just a warning.
The caller demanded that Damian surrender all his shipping ports by midnight.
If he refused, the child would die, and the Romano empire would burn to the ground.
Damian asked the caller who they were.
The voice simply laughed and ended the call.
Damian shoved the phone into his jacket pocket.
He ran out of the mausoleum with Luca right behind him.
They hurried back to the mansion to find the technology expert.
Damian slammed the burner phone onto the technician's desk.
He ordered the young man to trace the last ping of the incoming call.
The technician frantically connected the phone to his diagnostic computer.
He typed lines of code to track the cellular tower data.
The trace showed that the call had bounced off a local tower just three miles away.
Damian demanded the exact GPS coordinates of the origin point.
The technician narrowed the signal down to a specific radius.
His face went completely pale.
He looked up at Damian with wide, terrified eyes.
The technician stammered that the call had originated from inside the estate.
Damian asked which building the signal came from.
The expert pulled up a satellite map of the compound.
A red dot was flashing directly over the East Wing guest house.
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The East Wing guest house belonged exclusively to Luca Marino.
Damian slowly turned his head to look at his most trusted underboss.
