Chapter 3 - The Midnight Search
By 1:30 a.m., the estate was dead quiet.
Adeline stood in the shadows of the second-floor hallway, wearing black jeans and a dark sweater. In her pocket was a duplicate master keycard she had acquired from Edna, the housekeeper, under the guise of needing late-night access to the linen vaults.
Nico waited in his office across the hall, monitoring the estate’s security camera feeds from his secondary laptop.
"The main lobby camera is looped," Nico’s voice came through the tiny wireless earpiece in Adeline's ear. "You have twenty minutes before the night guard makes his rounds through the east wing. Be careful, Adeline. If Julian’s men catch you in his private study..."
"They won't," Adeline whispered, slipping the keycard into the lock panel of Julian Alfieri’s private office.
The heavy oak door unlocked with a soft, electronic beep. She stepped inside, pulling the door closed until it rested against the latch.
The office smelled of expensive cigars and aged leather. Adeline pulled a slender penlight from her pocket, sweeping the narrow beam across the large mahogany desk, the leather sofas, and the built-in bookcases.
"Check the wall safe behind the painting of the harbor," Nico instructed through the earpiece. "Julian uses the same birthdate combination for everything—October 14th."
Adeline hurried to the oil painting, swinging it forward on its hidden brass hinges. She entered the code: 1-0-1-4.
The electronic lock clicked open.
Inside were stacks of rubber-banded cash, several unregistered handphones, and a thick, blue legal folder labeled ALFIERI LOGISTICS — VOTING RESTRUCTURING.
Adeline pulled out the folder, spreading the pages beneath her penlight. She whipped out her smartphone, taking clear, high-resolution photographs of every single document.
"What do you see?" Nico asked.
"It's a buyout agreement," Adeline reported, her heart hammering against her ribs. "Julian has already signed over forty percent of the Alfieri shipping line to Camille's father, Arthur Ashcroft. But there's something else..."
She pulled out a sealed medical document bearing the official letterhead of the State Forensic Pathology Board.
"Nico..." Adeline gasped, reading the lines. "This is an autopsy request draft. Dated three days from now."
Silence stretched over the earpiece for five agonizing seconds.
"They aren't just planning to vote me out," Nico’s voice returned, darker than she had ever heard it. "They are planning an absolute cardiac arrest."
"The nerve-blocker..." Adeline realized, her skin turning ice cold. "If the dosage is tripled, it causes fatal respiratory paralysis. To a standard coroner, it looks like a secondary complication from your spinal injury."
Suddenly, the red light on the hallway door sensor began to blink.
"Adeline! Get out!" Nico ordered sharply. "Someone just overridden the lower floor access! The night guard isn't alone—Julian is with him!"
Adeline jammed the papers back into the safe, swung the painting shut, and locked the door.
Footsteps echoed down the marble hallway outside—heavy, unhurried, and approaching fast.
"Where do I go?" Adeline panicked softly, looking around the office. The window led to a thirty-foot drop down to the brick courtyard.
"The balcony door on your left," Nico said calmly, his voice steadying her. "It connects to the exterior ledge leading to my master bedroom window. The ledge is wide, but it’s slick from the rain. Can you do it?"
Adeline looked at the heavy door handle turning on the main entrance.
May you like
"I don't have a choice," she muttered.
She slipped through the balcony door into the freezing night rain, stepping out onto the narrow stone ledge just as Julian Alfieri stepped into his office.
