Chapter 6 - The Break-In
The rain began to fall in heavy, gray sheets over Manhattan as Julian and I sped back toward the estate.
"The silent alarm tripped at the rear terrace," Julian said, his eyes glued to his tablet, monitoring the private security frequency. "Our tactical team responded within four minutes, but the perpetrators cleared out through the wooded perimeter. They knew the blind spots in the security cameras, Andrea. Someone gave them the schematic layout."
"Marco," I said, my teeth clenched so hard my jaw ached. "He lived in that house for five years. He knows where every safe, every sensor, and every backup server is located."
"What were they looking for?"
"The black ledger," I answered quietly.
Julian glanced at me. "The ledger?"
"Three years ago, when Marco insisted on handling the international logistics for our gemstone imports, I noticed minor discrepancies in our shipping manifests. I didn't confront him then because I was naive enough to think he was just sloppy with numbers. But I kept a physical, handwritten log of every import license, every shipping container serial number, and every personal check he wrote to clear customs in Antwerp. That ledger is kept in the hidden floor safe beneath the library."
When we arrived, the estate was surrounded by flashing blue and red lights. Police tape fluttered in the autumn wind around the broken French doors of the ground-floor library.
Inside, the room was ransacked. Antique mahogany bookshelves had been stripped, books tossed haphazardly across the Persian rug, desk drawers dumped and shattered. The heavy Persian rug had been pulled back, revealing the circular steel plate of the floor safe.
The safe door was wide open. It was completely empty.
"Damn it!" Julian cursed, running a hand through his hair. "They got it. Andrea, without those original customs manifests, Marco can claim those unauthorized wire transfers were legitimate business expenses for gemstone purchases."
I walked slowly across the debris, stepping over shattered glass and torn paper, until I reached the open safe. I looked down into the dark, empty cavity, and then, for the first time in forty-eight hours, a slow, dangerous smile curved on my lips.
"They didn't get it, Julian," I said softly.
Julian blinked. "What do you mean? The safe is cleared out."
I reached behind the antique portrait of my grandmother hanging on the wall three feet to the left of the safe. I pressed a tiny, recessed brass hinge hidden within the gilded frame. The frame clicked, swinging forward to reveal a secondary, biometric lockbox built flush into the brick chimney breast.
I placed my thumb against the optical scanner. With a soft chime, the panel popped open.
Inside lay the real black leather ledger, along with three encrypted flash drives containing backup audio files and digital scans of every fraudulent invoice Marco had ever generated.
"The floor safe was a decoy," I murmured, pulling out the ledger and closing the hidden panel. "I installed that safe five years ago precisely because Marco was always snooping through my paperwork. Everything in that bottom safe was copies of expired, worthless utility bills and dummy receipts."
Julian let out a long, incredulous breath, shaking his head with a mixture of shock and awe. "You brilliant, paranoid genius."
"When a woman builds something in a world run by wolves, Julian, she learns to keep a knife behind every curtain," I replied, tucking the ledger securely under my arm. "Marco thinks he just stole his salvation. He thinks he has the leverage to walk into the emergency board meeting tomorrow and take Lumière Jewels without opposition."
"Then let him walk in," Julian said, his eyes lighting up with the thrill of the hunt. "Let him hang himself with his own rope."
Before we could leave the library, my personal phone rang. It was an unrecognized private number. I pressed speaker.
"Mrs. Chen?" A trembling, breathless woman's voice whispered on the other end.
"Who is this?"
"My name is Chloe," the woman choked out, coughing nervously. "I was Valerie’s roommate until yesterday. She... she locked me out of our apartment and stole my passport. She’s planning to leave the country tomorrow night, Mrs. Chen. And she’s not going alone."
"What are you talking about?"
"She and Marco booked two first-class tickets to Dubai under fake aliases for tomorrow at midnight," Chloe sobbed. "They're liquidating the Cayman accounts right now. But that's not all... Valerie has something else. She has the flash drive Marco took from your office computer two weeks ago. The one with all your proprietary jewelry designs for the upcoming Paris Fashion Week."
My stomach tightened. Those designs represented eight months of artistic labor and twenty million dollars in projected fall contracts.
"Where is she now, Chloe?" I asked, my voice deadly calm.
May you like
"She’s at the St. Regis Hotel, Penthouse 4B," Chloe blurted out. "Marco gave her five hundred thousand dollars in cash to hold while he attends the board meeting tomorrow. But Mrs. Chen... you have to hurry. Valerie bought a one-way ticket to Lisbon under a forged Spanish passport. She’s planning to double-cross Marco and run away with all the money before the board meeting even ends!"
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