Chapter 3 - The Threat in the FogThree days later, a thick, suffocating fog rolled off the Narragansett Bay, enveloping the Calder estate in a dense white wall.
Inside my study, Dominic Shaw pushed open the heavy oak door, placing an unredacted federal dossier flat onto my desk. His face was grim, his jaw set tight.
"You were right about the two-year gap, Boss," Dominic reported, his baritone low and tense.
I picked up the file. "What did you find?"
"Two years ago, Emma Reed was an assistant director at the Boston Pediatric Trauma Center," Dominic revealed, pointing to the certified hospital records. "Her husband, David Reed, was an investigative journalist looking into illegal port smuggling operations managed by the Falco syndicate."
My blood ran cold.
The Falco Syndicate—the very organization that had planted the bomb beneath my armored SUV fourteen months ago to take over my East Coast maritime shipping lines.
"What happened to David?" I demanded.
"A car bomb," Dominic answered flatly. "Eighteen months ago in downtown Boston. David died instantly. Emma was in the passenger seat. She spent six months in intensive care and eighteen months undergoing reconstructive spinal rehabilitation."
I stared at the black-and-white photograph attached to the dossier. It showed Emma standing outside a Boston court, her face pale, scars along her neck, holding a physical therapy cane.
"She wasn't placed here by the Falco family," I realized, the pieces falling into place with terrifying clarity. "She came here because she knew who I was."
"She knows you're at war with the men who killed her husband, Boss," Dominic added. "And she chose to work for the only man on the East Coast powerful enough to destroy them."
Before I could answer, the red emergency perimeter alarm on my desk began to pulse silently.
BZZZZT! BZZZZT!
The master security monitor displayed a dark breach signal at the southern cliff gate—a private access path leading from the rocky cove up to the estate gardens.
Three thermal signatures clad in tactical gear were moving rapidly through the thick fog toward the east wing.
The Falco family hadn't waited for the corporate war to unfold. They had sent a strike team directly to my home under the cover of the coastal fog.
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I reached for my Sig Sauer pistol, racking the heavy slide with a sharp, lethal CLICK.
"Dominic," I commanded, my storm-gray eyes flashing with an apocalyptic fury. "Lock down the main gates. Clear the east wing. I am going to my son's room."
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