Chapter 4 - The Traitor in the Shadow
"Step away from the desk, Boss," Marcus said, his voice completely devoid of the respectful, professional warmth he had shown for the last two hours.
The crackling fire in the hearth was the only sound in the vast library.
Dominic stood perfectly still. He didn't raise his hands, nor did he flinch. His dark eyes locked onto his head of security with a terrifying, icy calm.
"Ten years, Marcus," Dominic said softly. "I pulled you out of a military tribunal in Berlin. I gave you a home, a career, and three million dollars a year to protect my family. Vance bought you?"
Marcus let out a short, cynical laugh. "Vance didn't just buy me, Dominic. He paid off my family's debts in Switzerland before I ever met you. I’ve been Aethelgard’s embedded asset in your inner circle from day one. Every piece of antiquities intelligence you gathered over the last decade went straight to Vance's desk."
Marcus turned his cold gaze toward me, lowering the gun slightly so it was aimed at my forehead.
"Hand over the journal, kid," Marcus commanded. "And the notebook you just wrote in. You're coming with me to Vance's private airbase in Westchester."
My heart pounded like a trapped bird inside my chest. My legs felt weak, but my mind was spinning at a hundred miles an hour.
‘He wrote these marginal notes in his own handwriting...’
My eyes flicked down to the open journal on the desk. My father hadn't just left a warning about Marcus in the margins. He had drawn a small, geometric diagram beneath the text—a three-dimensional cube with four interlocking pins along the spine of the leather binding.
It wasn't just a book. The binding itself was a mechanical puzzle box!
While Marcus was keeping his eyes locked on Dominic, I slowly slid my left thumb along the spine of the ancient journal, feeling for four tiny, raised brass rivets hidden beneath the worn leather.
"Marcus," Dominic said, taking a slow, deliberate step to his left, drawing the traitor's attention away from me. "You know what Vance does to people once they outlive their usefulness. The moment he has the vault open, you're a liability."
"I have fifty million dollars waiting in a Zurich vault the moment I land in Westchester with the Weaver's daughter," Marcus sneered, adjusting his grip on the pistol. "I'll take my chances. Now, girl, grab the book and—"
CLICK-CLACK.
My thumb pressed the fourth rivet in the sequence my father had diagrammed.
Instantly, the thick leather spine of the journal split open with a sharp, pneumatic hiss! A hidden spring-loaded compartment inside the hollowed-out wooden spine snapped outward, releasing a blinding cloud of fine, bright red powder into the air!
It was dry Cayenne pepper and ground sulfur resin—my father’s favorite low-tech security trap!
The cloud exploded directly into Marcus’s face.
"ARRGH!" Marcus shrieked, dropping his weapon as he clutched his eyes, staggering backward in agony as the burning spice seared his retinas and lungs.
"NOW, OLIVIA!" Dominic roared.
Dominic lunged forward like a panther, slamming his shoulder into Marcus’s chest with brutal force. The two men crashed through the heavy oak coffee table, shattering glass and wood across the Persian rug. Dominic delivered a sharp, crushing right hook to Marcus’s jaw, knocking the traitor unconscious cold against the stone hearth.
Dominic stood up, breathing heavily, wiping a drop of blood from his lip. He immediately picked up Marcus’s fallen tactical pistol and checked the magazine.
He looked at me, his eyes filled with immense pride. "Your father’s sulfur trap. He used that same trick in Cairo thirty years ago."
"We have to move," I said, grabbing the journal—which now revealed a hollow chamber inside its spine containing a slender, six-inch cylinder made of solid black meteoritic iron.
Dominic stared at the cylinder in my hands. "The second key..."
"It was inside the book the whole time," I gasped. "My father didn't hide it across the globe. He hid it right under Vance's nose, inside the very journal Vance spent twenty years trying to buy!"
Outside the library windows, the deep, rhythmic thrumming of heavy helicopter blades cut through the rainy night air. High-powered searchlights began slicing through the dark glass, illuminating the library in blinding white beams.
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Vance’s strike team had arrived.
"To the wine cellar!" Dominic yelled, grabbing my arm and pulling me toward a hidden door behind the mahogany bookshelf. "There's an old subterranean drainage tunnel that leads straight to the river docks!"
