Chapter 58 The Sweep
The fortress was bleeding chaos.
Men sprinted across the stone walkways with fire extinguishers while the thick, acrid smell of burning rubber and diesel fuel choked the air. It tasted like metal on my tongue.
Dante, however, was not looking at the fire anymore. He had turned his back on the flames to stare at the stone walls of his home with a look of pure, concentrated hatred.
"Lock it down," he ordered. His voice did not shout, yet it carried over the roar of the fire with terrifying clarity. "Nobody in and nobody out. Kill the wifi. Kill the cellular boosters. I want the estate dark."
He turned to Enzo, his face smeared with soot. "Bring out the scanners. I want every inch of this estate swept. Start with the staff quarters, move to the guest wings, and then check the nursery. If there is a device emitting a signal inside these walls, I want it found within the hour."
My blood turned to absolute ice.
The phone in my pocket felt heavy, like a stone dragged from the bottom of a river, pulling me down. It was a smoking gun pressed against my hip.
"Enzo, take the East Wing," Dante barked, pointing a gloved hand. "I will take the West. Move."
The West Wing was where my room was.
"Lilith," Dante said, pivoting to face me. His eyes were wild, the whites stark against the grime on his face. "Go to your room. Lock the door. Do not open it for anyone but me."
"Dante, please," I started, my voice trembling.
"Go!" he shouted. The stress finally cracked his composure, revealing the terrified animal beneath the soldier. "I cannot protect you if you are out here exposed. Move!"
I turned and ran.
I did not run because I was scared of the attackers outside the walls. I ran because I was terrified of the man standing inside them.
I sprinted through the winding corridors, ignoring the terrified whispers of the maids huddled in the alcoves, and burst into my room. I slammed the heavy oak door and locked it with hands that shook so violently I nearly dropped the key.
I had minutes. Maybe less.
I pulled the phone out. The screen was dark, innocent-looking, but it held my death warrant inside its microchips.
If Dante found this, if he saw the text history, he would not see a scared girl trying to comfort a friend. He would see a traitor who had painted a target on his back.
I ran into the bathroom and turned on the sink faucet full blast to cover the noise. I grabbed a heavy glass candle holder from the marble counter and wrapped the phone in a thick hand towel.
I placed the bundle on the tile floor and brought the glass down with everything I had.
Crack.
I hit it again. And again. The sound of crunching plastic and shattering glass was sickening, like breaking a small bone.
I opened the towel to survey the damage. The screen was spiderwebbed into a thousand diamonds, and the body was bent at an unnatural angle. It was not enough.
I used my fingernails to pry the back open, ripping the battery out before digging out the tiny SIM card. That little chip was the soul of the phone.
I dropped the SIM card into the toilet and flushed. I watched the water swirl, taking the tiny piece of plastic down into the dark pipes of the castle, carrying my secret away to the sea.
But the battery remained. I could not flush the battery because it would not go down, and the scanners would pick up the lithium signature in the trash.
My eyes scanned the room frantically until they landed on the heavy, decorative bottle of bath salts on the rim of the tub. It was filled with opaque, purple crystals smelling of lavender. I unscrewed the top and shoved the battery deep into the center of the salts, shaking the bottle until the crystals shifted to cover it completely.
I scooped up the rest of the debris, the shattered plastic and glass, and ran to the window. It overlooked the sheer drop of the cliff face leading down to the jagged rocks and the churning ocean below. I unlatched the heavy pane.
The wind howled outside, smelling of smoke and impending winter. I threw the handful of debris as far as I could into the night. I watched the pieces scatter into the dark abyss, swallowed by the void.
I shut the window and latched it. I went back to the sink and scrubbed my hands until they were raw and red, trying to wash away the invisible guilt that coated my skin like oil.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
"Lilith! Open up!"
It was Dante.
I dried my hands on my jeans, took a ragged breath to steady my heart, and walked to the door. I unlocked it.
Dante strode in. He held a handheld device in his grip that looked like a Geiger counter, with a red light blinking rhythmically on the display. He did not look at me. He swept the device over the bed, under the pillows, and through the closet.
Beep... Beep...
My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird.
He walked into the bathroom.
Beep... Beep...
He swept the device over the sink. He swept it over the toilet where the SIM card had been only moments ago. He moved toward the bathtub.
He passed the wand over the bottle of bath salts.
Beep.
He paused.
I stopped breathing. The room spun slightly.
He moved the wand closer to the wall, hovering near the electric razor charging on the outlet next to the salts.
BEEP-BEEP-BEEP.
"Charging coils," he muttered, shaking his head. "Just interference."
He lowered the device and turned to me. He looked exhausted. The rage had drained out of him, leaving only a hollow weariness that made him look ten years older.
"It is clean," he said softly.
My knees gave out. I sank onto the edge of the bed and buried my face in my hands. Dante crossed the room to sit beside me, pulling me into his chest.
He thought I was crying from the fear of the explosion. He thought I was traumatized by the attack on our home.
"I’ve got you," he whispered into my hair, his hand rubbing my back in soothing circles.
"I am sorry you had to see that. I promise you, Lilith, I will find the rat. I will find whoever did this, and I will make them bleed for every second of fear they caused you."
I closed my eyes, listening to the steady beat of his heart. It was the heart I had almost stopped.
"I know," I whispered into his shirt.
Suddenly, his radio crackled to life, shattering the moment.
"Boss," Enzo’s voice came through, static-filled but triumphant. "We found it. We found the signal in the East Wing."
Dante froze. He pulled back to look at me, his eyes turning cold and predatory once more.
"Stay here," he said.
He stood up and walked out the door, locking it from the outside.
I sat there in the silence, staring at the wood, realizing with a sick, sinking dread that my secret was safe, but someone else was about to pay the price for it.