Chapter 4 - The Ghost Taylor Rossi Couldn’t Find
Fifty-eight minutes.
That was how long we had before the first encrypted release.
Taylor’s SUV raced south through rain while I balanced my laptop across my knees.
“Can you stop it?” he asked.
“I built it.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“I don’t know.”
Taylor’s eyes hardened.
Not at me.
At the screen.
“Who could trigger it?”
“Nobody.”
“Clearly somebody.”
“I designed three activation routes. Missed authentication. Emergency biometric trigger. Physical token.”
“Where’s the token?”
“With me.”
“Then?”
I typed rapidly.
The code had been modified.
Someone had inserted a fourth route.
Remote override.
That should have been impossible.
Unless they obtained the original architecture.
Only two copies existed.
One with me.
The other—
I looked at Taylor.
“What?”
“The ledger.”
“What ledger?”
“The one I left under the necklace.”
He went still.
“That was a copy.”
“Yes.”
“Of financial records.”
“And hidden inside the file metadata was part of the contingency architecture.”
Taylor stared.
“Why?”
“Because if you killed me after finding it, the document itself would become evidence.”
His expression turned almost incredulous.
“You built a trap inside a goodbye note?”
“I worked for you three years.”
Something close to respect flickered across his face.
Then disappeared.
“Who accessed it?”
Taylor called his security team.
The ledger was gone.
Not stolen from the penthouse.
Transferred.
Marco had ordered it removed for “digital analysis” the morning after I disappeared.
The pieces aligned.
Marco had been inside Taylor’s systems for years.
He used Rossi authorization codes.
Moved Costa money.
Tracked me.
Accessed the contingency.
The question was why trigger it now?
I studied the countdown.
42:16.
“He wants the release.”
Taylor frowned.
“Why?”
“Because it doesn’t just hurt you.”
“Costa?”
“Yes.”
My archive contained evidence involving both families.
If released publicly, the result would be chaos.
Investigations.
Frozen accounts.
Political panic.
Markets collapsing.
Taylor’s enemies attacking.
Costa’s rivals doing the same.
Marco was not working for Vittorio Costa.
Not completely.
He was playing both sides.
“Where would he go?” I asked.
Taylor looked out the window.
“If he wants both families destroyed?”
“Yes.”
“Somewhere he can profit from the collapse.”
I understood.
“Short positions.”
Taylor looked at me.
“Exactly.”
Someone preparing for financial disaster could make billions betting against companies connected to Rossi and Costa.
We searched.
Not through criminal records.
Through markets.
That was my territory.
I connected through a secure financial database and searched unusual options activity involving six public companies tied indirectly to Taylor and Costa.
There.
Three massive short positions.
Placed through offshore funds.
Thirty-seven million dollars.
If Rossi and Costa holdings collapsed, the positions could be worth hundreds of millions.
The beneficial owner was hidden.
But the filing contact had an address.
Newark.
Industrial district.
Taylor called three people.
Then stopped.
He looked at the phone.
“I don’t know who I can trust.”
For the first time since I met him, Taylor Rossi sounded uncertain.
I closed the laptop for a second.
“Now you understand.”
“What?”
“What my life with you felt like.”
He looked at me.
Silence.
Then he said quietly:
“Yes.”
That single word did more damage to my anger than any apology.
The timer reached twenty-seven minutes.
We changed vehicles.
No entourage.
No convoy.
Taylor trusted only one driver now, an older man named Gabriel who had worked for his father.
We crossed into New Jersey.
The building was an abandoned data center converted into private server storage.
Marco had prepared well.
Taylor wanted to enter.
I stopped him.
“No.”
His brows lowered.
“What?”
“He expects you.”
“He expects both of us.”
“That’s why I’m going.”
“That’s why neither of us should.”
Taylor’s frustration rose.
“Alex, we have twenty minutes.”
“And walking into Marco’s trap wastes all of them.”
I pointed to the network schematic.
“If I can connect to the building’s external fiber junction, I may be able to isolate the server remotely.”
Taylor looked at the utility access point across the street.
“You need to go outside.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
I almost laughed.
“You don’t get to tell me no anymore.”
His jaw tightened.
Then he nodded once.
Progress.
We crossed separately.
Rain had become mist.
I opened the utility housing with a tool from Gabriel’s vehicle.
Fourteen minutes.
Connected.
Nothing.
Encryption blocked me.
I tried another port.
Nine minutes.
Taylor stood nearby scanning the street.
“Alex.”
“Don’t.”
“Cars approaching.”
“How many?”
“Two.”
My pulse accelerated.
“Marco?”
“Probably.”
Five minutes.
I found the correct server.
It required a password.
Not technical.
Personal.
Marco had configured it.
What would he use?
Fifteen years with Taylor.
Betrayal hidden beneath loyalty.
I tried dates.
Names.
Failed.
Three minutes.
Taylor crouched beside me.
“What does he hate?”
“What?”
“Passwords are often emotional.”
I looked at him.
“What does Marco hate?”
Taylor thought.
Then his face changed.
“My father.”
“Why?”
“My father blamed Marco’s brother for a theft. Had him expelled from the organization.”
“What was his brother’s name?”
“Antonio.”
I entered ANTONIO.
Wrong.
“One minute.”
Taylor said:
“My father called him a traitor.”
I typed TRAITOR.
Wrong.
Thirty seconds.
Think.
Marco had spent fifteen years serving the son of the man he hated.
Not loyalty.
Revenge.
I typed ROSSI.
Wrong.
Ten seconds.
Then I understood.
Marco did not hate the name.
He wanted to replace it.
I typed:
DELUCA.
Access granted.
I hit emergency isolation.
The timer froze.
00:03.
For three seconds, neither of us moved.
Then I laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because my body needed somewhere to put the terror.
Taylor stared at me.
Then, unexpectedly, he laughed too.
A short, disbelieving sound.
I had heard Taylor Rossi threaten senators more often than I had heard him laugh.
The moment was strange.
Almost normal.
Then headlights swept across us.
Taylor stopped laughing.
“Move.”
We entered Gabriel’s vehicle as two cars turned into the lot.
We escaped.
But Marco had vanished again.
The immediate crisis ended.
The larger one had not.
Taylor took me to a secure house outside Manhattan.
Not his penthouse.
I refused.
The house belonged to a legitimate Rossi company and had no permanent staff.
For the first time in weeks, I slept six uninterrupted hours.
When I woke, Taylor was sitting in the kitchen with coffee.
His suit jacket was gone.
His sleeves were rolled up.
He looked absurdly domestic.
I hated how familiar it felt.
“You stayed.”
He looked at me.
“It’s my house.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes.”
I poured coffee.
Neither of us mentioned the past immediately.
Then Taylor said:
“Daniel Mercer.”
My hand stopped.
“What about him?”
“I checked old records.”
“And?”
“Marco handled it.”
The room went cold.
Taylor continued.
“I knew Mercer had discovered questionable transactions. Marco told me the problem had been contained.”
“What does contained mean?”
“I assumed he had been paid to disappear.”
“You never asked?”
“No.”
Anger rose through me.
“A man vanished and you didn’t ask?”
“I was a different man.”
“That’s convenient.”
“It’s not an excuse.”
I stared at him.
Taylor met my eyes.
“I helped build the world that allowed Marco to do whatever he did. Whether I ordered it or not, that belongs to me.”
That stopped me.
Taylor Rossi did not accept blame.
Not easily.
“What happened to Daniel?”
“We don’t know.”
“Alive?”
“Possibly.”
My breath caught.
Taylor slid a file toward me.
A financial transfer had been made every month for three years to a medical care facility under a false corporate name.
The beneficiary’s initials:
D.M.
I looked up.
“Where?”
“Upstate.”
“When do we leave?”
“After you eat.”
Despite everything, I almost smiled.
Then Taylor’s phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
His expression changed.
“What?”
He hung up.
“Isabella Costa disappeared last night.”
I stiffened.
“Marco?”
“Her father thinks I took her.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Does he believe you?”
“No.”
Of course not.
Taylor looked toward the windows.
“Vittorio just issued an ultimatum.”
“What does he want?”
“You.”
My stomach dropped.
Taylor’s voice was quiet.
“He says if I hand you over by midnight, Isabella comes home alive.”
I stared at him.
“And if you don’t?”
Taylor’s eyes met mine.
May you like
“New York burns.”
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