Chapter 4: The Infiltration of the Moretti Estate
At exactly 11:58 PM, my black sedan crept down the snow-covered gravel driveway of the North Shore estate, its headlights off, gliding past the towering iron gates that Maso had conveniently left unlatched. I wore a heavy black tactical coat over my clothes, my father’s heavy steel-jawed jeweler’s pliers tucked safely into my belt alongside a compressed-air sedative dart gun Dominic had procured from an animal control supplier. Slipping out of the car, I hugged the dark shadows of the boxwood hedges, moving with silent, calculated precision toward the glass-paned greenhouse. The padlock on the sub-floor access hatch had been freshly cut by Maso, leaving a dark, yawning gap that smelled faintly of ozone, antiseptic, and old damp earth. I pulled a pen-light from my pocket, gripped the cold iron rungs of the ladder, and descended alone into the belly of the beast, where Alessandro Moretti was currently playing god with lives he considered disposable.
