Chapter 5 - The Encryption Key
The underground security bunker hummed with the sound of cooling fans and flashing server racks.
Alessandro strode into the room with Isabella right beside him—he had refused to leave her in the suite alone, much to Marco’s silent disapproval. Several elite tech specialists sat hunched over multiple glowing monitors displaying streams of green code and digital schematics.
“Talk to me, Rossi,” Alessandro ordered, standing behind the lead programmer.
Rossi, a bearded man with frantic eyes, tapped a final key on his mechanical keyboard. A high-resolution digital file popped up on the central monitor.
“Boss, the flash drive wasn't just a data storage device,” Rossi explained, wiping sweat from his forehead. “It was a bypass key designed to disable the estate’s perimeter security at 9:00 PM—right when the engagement toast was supposed to happen. Whoever wrote the code didn't just want to kill you at the table; they wanted the gates wide open so an assault team could sweep the grounds afterward.”
“An inside job,” Alessandro stated, his face hardening into stone. “Who wrote the code?”
“That’s the thing,” Rossi hesitated, glancing sideways at Isabella before looking back at Alessandro. “The encryption signature belongs to a secure terminal inside this very compound. Specifically... the private terminal in Don Vittorio Romano’s residential study.”
Isabella gasped, stumbling backward until her back hit the cold concrete wall.
“No,” she whispered, shaking her head violently. “That’s impossible. My father doesn't even know how to program a VCR, let alone write military-grade bypass scripts! He’s a shipping merchant, not a hacker!”
“People hire hackers, Miss Romano,” Marco pointed out coldly, resting his hand on his holster. “And Don Vittorio has billions in debt tied up in overseas liabilities. A merger with the Moretti syndicate would save his empire—unless he found a way to take it over from the inside by eliminating the head of the family.”
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“My father loves me!” Isabella cried, her voice cracking with hysteria. “He wouldn't risk my life just to settle a ledger!”
“Men like Vittorio Romano love power and survival more than anything else,” Alessandro said, his voice dead and heavy. He turned away from the screen, his dark eyes fixed on the steel door leading to the upper residential levels. “Marco. Lock down the east wing. Bring Vittorio to the study.”
