Chapter 4 - The Agent in Red Satin
The red satin dress suddenly looked like tactical armor.
Madison—Agent Miller—didn't draw a weapon, but the absolute confidence in her posture was more intimidating than the assault rifles pointed at her.
"You're an FBI agent?" I breathed, staring at the woman I had spent months hating.
"Deep cover," Madison confirmed, not taking her eyes off Dominic. "Christopher thought he was playing me, using me to humiliate you so you would leave the house before the vault heist went down. But the Bureau has been tracking his shipping anomalies for a year. We knew he was planning to rob the Rossi syndicate. I was embedded to find out how, and when."
She looked at Christopher, a smirk playing on her lips. "I must admit, the tattoo idea was brilliantly paranoid. But you got greedy, Christopher. You shouldn't have brought your brother into it."
Answer One, Open Two. Madison was an undercover federal agent who had manipulated the entire affair to gather evidence on Christopher's heist. But if the FBI was here, why were Dominic's cartel men pointing guns at us instead of running? And what happened to the real ledgers that proved Christopher's guilt?
"I didn't bring him into it," Christopher spat, glaring at his older brother. "He caught wind of the blueprints from a dirty cop on his payroll."
Dominic laughed, a harsh, grating sound. "I didn't need a dirty cop, Enzo. I just needed to watch you panic when you realized Carlo Rossi was moving the cash out of the vault tonight. You ran out of time. You needed the tattoo done immediately, which is why you dragged your poor brother-in-law here to do a rush job."
Dominic raised his hand, signaling his men. The two mercenaries racked the bolts on their assault rifles, the metallic clatter deafening in the enclosed space.
"Arrest us if you want, Agent Miller," Dominic sneered. "But you have to survive the next five minutes first. Hand over the blueprints, Christopher, and the girl's drawing. Now."
"I don't have them on me," Christopher lied, backing away slowly toward the grand staircase.
"He's lying," Maria interjected, her gun still raised. She looked at me, a desperate, maternal terror in her eyes. "He put them in the safe in his study. I saw him."
"Maria, shut up!" Christopher yelled.
"You promised me my daughter!" Maria screamed back, tears streaming down her face. "You lied! You were just going to steal the money and leave her to die!"
She didn't hesitate. She fired.
Not at Christopher. She fired at the massive crystal chandelier hanging directly above Dominic and his men.
The bullet shattered the heavy central mounting bracket.
With a terrifying, groaning CRACK, the thousand-pound fixture plummeted toward the marble floor.
"Move!" Dominic roared, diving backward out the front doors.
The chandelier crashed with explosive force, sending glass shrapnel flying in every direction. The impact plunged the foyer into darkness, save for the flickering emergency lights.
"Run, Sarah!" Owen grabbed my hand, yanking me toward the kitchen doors.
I didn't argue. We sprinted through the darkness, navigating the familiar layout blindly. The sound of Dominic's men shouting and firing wildly into the dark echoed behind us.
We burst through the kitchen doors, expecting an empty room.
Instead, standing by the marble island, holding a heavy tactical flashlight and a suppressed pistol, was Agent Miller. She had used the chaos to flank us.
"Stop right there," Miller commanded, shining the bright beam directly into my eyes.
"Let her go, she's pregnant!" Owen yelled, stepping in front of me again.
"I don't want to hurt her, Owen," Miller said, her voice dropping the arrogant mistress facade entirely. "I need her to open the safe."
"I don't know the combination to his safe," I gasped, clutching my stomach as a sharp pain radiated through my back. The stress was taking its toll.
"You don't need the combination, Sarah," Miller said, stepping closer. "Christopher is a paranoid narcissist. He doesn't use numbers. He uses biometrics. The safe requires a dual thumbprint scan. His... and his wife's. He set it up when he married you, thinking it was a romantic gesture. It was actually a failsafe to ensure he could access the funds if he was ever incapacitated."
My blood ran cold. The man who had humiliated me, who had planned to erase my name from his body, had tied the security of his stolen empire directly to my fingerprints.
"If I open that safe," I said, my voice shaking, "Dominic's men will kill us all to get what's inside."
"If you don't open it," Miller countered, "Christopher will get to it first, destroy the evidence, and disappear with the money. And Maria's daughter will die in a shipping container."
I looked at Owen. He gave me a slow, reluctant nod. We didn't have a choice.
"Okay," I breathed. "Let's go."
We crept through the dark house, avoiding the main hallways, utilizing the servant stairs to reach the second-floor study.
The heavy oak doors were closed.
Miller pressed her ear against the wood, listening intently. She signaled for us to stay back, then kicked the doors open, sweeping the room with her flashlight and pistol.
The study was empty. The massive oil painting behind Christopher's desk had been torn down, revealing the sleek, modern steel face of the biometric wall safe.
We hurried inside. Miller locked the heavy doors behind us, sliding a heavy brass chair under the handle to barricade it.
"Put your thumb on the scanner, Sarah," Miller directed, illuminating the small glass pad on the safe.
I stepped forward, my hands trembling violently. I pressed my thumb against the glass.
A red light flashed. BEEP.
SECONDARY AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED.
"We need Christopher's print," Miller swore, realizing the flaw in her plan. "It won't open without him."
Before we could brainstorm a solution, a heavy, rhythmic pounding began on the study doors.
"Open the door, Sarah," Christopher's voice commanded from the hallway. It wasn't the voice of a cornered man. It was the voice of a man who held all the cards.
"Go to hell!" Owen shouted back.
"If you don't open the door in ten seconds," Christopher said calmly, "I'm going to detonate the localized EMP charge I installed in the ceiling above you. It will fry the locking mechanism on the safe permanently, destroying the contents. But more importantly, it will ignite the thermite charges hidden in the walls of the study. You will burn alive."
He wasn't bluffing. He had rigged his own house to protect his secrets.
"Open the door, Miller," I whispered, terrified for my unborn child.
Miller hesitated, then pulled the chair away and stepped back, her gun raised.
The doors swung open.
Christopher stood there, but he wasn't alone.
He was holding Maria by the hair, pressing a gun to her temple.
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And standing behind him, looking utterly defeated, was Dominic.
"Well," Christopher smiled, stepping into the study with his hostages. "It seems we have a family reunion after all."
