Chapter 2 - THE CLONED TRIGGER
The phone on the table vibrated, inching across the polished mahogany.
Luca Moretti.
Luca stared at his own name glowing in the dark room. He hadn't touched his phone. It was still in his breast pocket.
“Don’t let him answer it!” Sofia screamed, lunging across the table.
She wasn't fast enough.
Dante, the man Luca had trusted with his life and his family for fifteen years, snatched the burner phone. But he didn’t swipe to answer. He pressed the volume button twice.
A hard, mechanical click echoed from the floorboards beneath Luca’s chair.
“Nobody moves,” Dante said. His voice was no longer the respectful murmur of a loyal employee. It was cold. Hollow.
Luca froze. His three bodyguards raised their weapons, but they were aiming at a man who was already dead inside.
“What is this, Dante?” Luca’s voice was dangerously low.
“Insurance,” Dante replied, backing slowly toward the service doors. “The bomb under your son’s room was a shaped charge. Messy. Loud. But the one under your chair? That’s military grade, Luca. Tied to a localized cellular relay. I cloned your phone. If I drop this burner, if the battery dies, if the signal drops… the circuit completes.”
Adrian, pale and shaking, took a step toward his father.
“Stay back, Adrian!” Luca barked. He didn't take his eyes off Dante. “Fifteen years. You ate at my table. You held my son when his mother died. Why?”
Dante’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Because you didn't deserve her. And you certainly don’t deserve the empire she helped you build.”
Sofia slowly pushed herself off the table. Her apron was stained with spilled water, her breathing ragged. She kept her eyes locked on Dante’s left hand. The one holding the phone.
“He’s lying,” Sofia whispered.
The entire room shifted their attention to the waitress.
“Shut up, girl,” Dante snapped.
“He’s lying,” Sofia repeated, her voice steadying. She stepped in front of Adrian, shielding the heir with her own body. “There is no bomb under your chair, Mr. Moretti.”
Luca frowned. “How could you possibly know that?”
“Because he’s a coward,” Sofia said, her eyes burning into Dante’s. “Military grade explosives require a staging area. They require silence to wire. He didn’t have the room tonight. I watched him. He spent thirty minutes near Adrian’s door, but he hasn't been in this dining room since four o'clock this afternoon.”
Dante’s grip on the phone tightened. His jaw clenched.
“Call his bluff, Mr. Moretti,” Sofia said softly. “Step off the chair.”
“If you're wrong, we all die,” one of the bodyguards hissed.
“I’m not wrong,” she said.
Luca looked at the terrified girl. She had saved his son once tonight. He looked at Dante, the man who had plotted his ruin.
Luca took a deep breath. And he stepped away from the chair.
Nothing happened.
No click. No explosion.
Dante’s face twisted in rage. He pulled a suppressed pistol from his jacket, aiming straight at Sofia.
“Drop it!” Luca roared.
Gunfire erupted. But Dante didn’t shoot Sofia. He shot the main chandelier.
Glass rained down in the darkness. The room plunged into absolute black. Shouts filled the air. Luca tackled his son to the floor, covering Adrian with his own body. Sofia hit the deck, covering her head as heavy boots scrambled across the hardwood.
By the time the backup emergency lights flickered on, painting the room in a bloody red hue, the service doors were swinging on their hinges.
Dante was gone.
Luca pulled himself up, hauling Adrian to his feet. “Are you hit?”
“I’m fine,” Adrian choked out, terrified but unharmed.
Luca turned to his guards. “Lock down the city. He doesn't leave Chicago alive.”
He then turned to the waitress. Sofia was kneeling on the floor, picking up a small, silver object that had fallen from Dante’s coat during the scuffle.
Luca marched over and snatched her arm, pulling her up. “You knew his trigger was fake. You knew his timeline.”
Sofia didn't flinch.
“Who the hell are you, Sofia?” Luca demanded.
She opened her palm, revealing the object she had retrieved. It was a tarnished silver pocket watch.
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“My name is Sofia Rossi,” she said quietly. “And I’m the sister of the man your security chief murdered three years ago.”
Luca stared at the watch. He recognized it immediately. It belonged to an undercover federal agent who had vanished without a trace.
