Chapter 4 - The Shadows Within
The sudden darkness swallowed the grand staircase in absolute blackness.
Emergency backup lights flickered on, casting a dim, bloody red glow across the hallway.
I rushed down the stairs, using the faint red illumination to track Dr. Gable's path.
I found him hiding behind the massive granite island in the estate's main kitchen.
I grabbed him by the collar of his expensive suit and slammed him violently against the stainless steel refrigerator.
"Who are you working for?!" I roared, pressing the barrel of my gun under his chin.
The pediatrician trembled uncontrollably, tears of pure terror streaming down his face.
"Please, Adrien, they took my wife!" he sobbed, raising his hands in surrender.
"Who took her?" I demanded, refusing to loosen my grip.
"The Rossi syndicate," Gable confessed, his voice breaking into a pathetic whimper.
The Rossi family was my oldest and most vicious rival in the Chicago underworld.
"They forced me to place the emitter to distract your security team," he cried.
"What is their real objective?" I asked, my blood running cold at the thought of a coordinated Rossi attack.
"They do not want to kill the children, Adrien," Gable whispered, his eyes wide with horror.
"They want to kidnap the triplets to force you to sign over the entire Moretti empire."
I shoved the traitorous doctor to the floor just as Marco entered the kitchen with Elena and the children.
"Marco, we need to move to the underground panic room immediately," I ordered.
The panic room was heavily reinforced with titanium steel and had a separate, untraceable ventilation system.
We hurried down the service corridor, guiding the rolling cribs over the tiled floors.
I punched my secret passcode into the hidden keypad behind a bookshelf.
The heavy steel door of the panic room slowly hissed open.
I pushed the cribs inside and turned around to usher Elena and Sophie into the safe space.
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But as the red emergency lights illuminated the interior of the panic room, I froze in my tracks.
Five heavily armed men wearing tactical gear and black ski masks were already standing inside my impenetrable vault.
