THE THRESHOLD OF VENGEANCE

It took Silas exactly four hours to tear apart Evelyn’s life. The sun had set, casting long, menacing shadows across my study. I was staring out the window toward the staff quarters, watching a small light turn on in the window I knew belonged to Anna and Lily.

"Boss," Silas said, stepping back into the room with a leather-bound folder. He didn't look happy. When Silas didn't look happy, people usually ended up in the harbor.

"Talk to me," I said without turning around.

"It’s not just eight grand, and she wasn't paying off gambling debts," Silas growled, tossing the folder onto my desk. "The marble restoration was just her testing the waters. She’s been siphoning money from the household logistics budget for eight months. Totaling close to eighty thousand."

I turned slowly. "Eighty thousand? And my accountants didn't catch it?"

"She was smart. She faked invoices from our legitimate shell companies. But that's not the worst part." Silas crossed his massive arms. "I pulled her bank records and traced the offshore transfers. She wasn't keeping the money, Victor. She was paying someone else."

"Who?"

"The Russo family."

The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. The Russos were our primary rivals, a brutal cartel that had been trying to gain a foothold in my territory for three years. If Evelyn was funneling money to them, it wasn't a grift. It was treason.

"Why would my household manager be paying the Russos?" I asked, though the sickening realization was already forming in my gut.

"She wasn't paying them for protection," Silas said grimly. "She was buying hardware. Surveillance jammers. Blueprints of the estate's security grid. She used the 'maintenance' budgets to leave blind spots in the cameras. The eighty grand was just the down payment for the hit."

I felt a cold, murderous rage wash over me. Evelyn had systematically dismantled the security of my home. My fortress.

"Where are the blind spots?" I demanded.

"The service corridors. The kitchen. The staff entrance." Silas paused. "The same entrance you caught the kid in this morning."

My heart hammered against my ribs. It wasn't just cruelty that made Evelyn deny the threshold request. If a contractor had come in to fix the marble, they would have noticed the tampered security cameras at that door. Evelyn kept the door broken and off-limits to legitimate workers to keep her blind spot secure. Anna and Lily were collateral damage in a plot to assassinate me.

"Lock down the estate," I barked, grabbing my shoulder holster from the back of my chair. "Call in every soldier we have on the payroll. Nobody gets in or out."

"Victor, if the Russos have the blind spots..."