Chapter 7 - The Hidden Compartment
I didn't sleep that night. I didn't even turn on the lights.
Armed with a heavy industrial flashlight, I scoured Marco’s private study from top to bottom. I tore through the bookshelves, checked behind every framed painting, and even unscrewed the floor vents.
Nothing.
If I were Marco, I thought, pacing frantically across the Persian rug, where would I hide something that could bring down an international syndicate without my father or Dante finding it?
I remembered the night before he was killed. He had been sitting at his mahogany desk, meticulously polishing an old antique grandfather clock that had belonged to his grandfather—the same grandfather who built the estate.
I rushed across the room and dropped to my knees in front of the massive, six-foot-tall wooden clock standing in the corner of the study.
The pendulum swung rhythmically, ticking away the seconds in the silent room.
I opened the glass front panel, gently pushing the brass pendulum aside. I shined my flashlight against the back wooden panel inside the clock case.
There was a tiny, expertly disguised wooden seam—a false back panel.
I pressed my fingertips against the wood and pushed upward. With a soft click, the back panel slid down, revealing a hidden compartment carved directly into the thick oak housing.
Inside sat a heavy leather-bound journal and a single, encrypted flash drive labeled: Dante Althaus & Vittorio Moretti - Syndicate Routes.
My hands trembled as I pulled the journal out and opened it. The pages were filled with Marco’s meticulous handwriting detailing illegal arms shipments, human trafficking payoffs, and laundered cartel money flowing through Moretti Textiles subsidiaries for over a decade.
He had known everything. And he had been quietly building an unassailable federal case to destroy them all.
I slipped the flash drive into my pocket and tucked the journal securely inside my jacket.
Just as I stood up, the front security alarm of the estate began to shriek, flashing a blinding red light through the study windows.
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Intuder alert: Perimeter breach at the west gate.
They were back. And they weren't waiting until tomorrow.
