Chapter 3 - The Procession Past the Guarded Threshold
The heavy oak doors of the library swung outward, pushed open by two small hands straining against the polished brass handles.
Standing in the marble corridor outside were Marco and Luca. Both men were in their early thirties, built like brick pillars, clad in identical charcoal-black tailored suits with discreet bulges beneath their left armpits. They were hardened veterans of the Moretti family’s street operations, men who had seen warehouse shootouts without blinking, trained to react to any sudden movement with lethal precision.
When the heavy doors parted, their hands instinctively twitched toward their lapels.
Then their eyes dropped.
Emerging from the sovereign inner sanctum of the Moretti empire was a six-year-old girl in an oversized houndstooth trench coat, holding a cracked magnifying glass before her eye like a monocle, scanning the grout lines between the Italian marble floor tiles.
Before either guard could register the impossibility of the scene, a shadow fell over them.
Dante Moretti stepped through the doorway directly behind her.
Marco’s mouth fell open a fraction of an inch. Luca, whose jaw was usually clamped tight enough to crack walnuts, blinked repeatedly as if suffering a sudden neurological episode. Their employer—the man whose name caused district attorneys to lose sleep and sent rival family heads into panic rooms—was walking at a slow, measured crawl, keeping pace with a child who was currently inspecting a brass doorstop with intense academic curiosity.
Dante’s eyes locked onto Marco. The boss’s expression was ice-cold, devoid of any explanation, daring either of them to utter a single syllable, breathe incorrectly, or acknowledge the sheer absurdity of the procession.
Marco snapped his mouth shut so fast his teeth clicked. He instantly threw his shoulders back, staring rigidly at the oil painting on the opposite wall as though it were the most fascinating piece of Renaissance art on the eastern seaboard. Luca followed suit, plastering his back against the mahogany wainscoting, his posture stiff enough to pass a military inspection, his eyes locked forward into empty space.
Sophie stopped right between the two hulking bodyguards. She adjusted her canvas bag, pulled out her red spiral notebook, and flipped through three blank pages before looking up at Marco.
"Excuse me, officer," Sophie said with high professional dignity. "Have you seen any suspicious footprints this morning? Specifically muddy ones about this big?" She held her thumb and index finger four inches apart.
Marco’s eyes darted down for a fraction of a second, then shot back to Dante, pleading for divine intervention. Dante stood two paces back, his arms crossed over his chest, his face an impenetrable mask of dark amusement.
"Answer the detective, Marco," Dante commanded softly.
Marco swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing over his collar. "No, uh... no ma'am. No muddy footprints reported on the perimeter, Detective."
Sophie sighed, a dramatic, world-weary sound that suggested her patience with local law enforcement was wearing thin. "Just as I thought. The criminal is using the ceilings again."
She flipped the notebook closed, jammed it back into her canvas satchel, and continued her march down the wide, sun-drenched corridor toward the grand entrance hall. Dante followed her, his long strides shortened to accommodate her little steps, his polished Oxford shoes clicking softly against the marble in a rhythmic cadence behind the scuff of her shoes.
As they turned the corner toward the grand staircase, Marco turned his head slowly toward Luca.
May you like
"Did that just happen?" Marco whispered out the side of his mouth.
"Shut up," Luca muttered back without moving a muscle. "If you value your life, you didn't see a thing. The boss is working undercover."
