Chapter 3 - The Lockdown
Downstairs, the mansion was under a completely different kind of siege.
Marcus Webb, a razor-sharp attorney with silver-streaked hair and a reputation for destroying opponents in federal court before lunch, strode through the double doors of the study, tossing a heavy leather briefcase onto the mahogany desk.
"Well, the financial tourniquet is working," Marcus announced without preamble, sinking into a leather armchair across from Alejandro. "Every single bank account, stock portfolio, trust fund, and offshore shell company tied to Vivian Moretti and Meridian Logistics holdings has been frozen by federal emergency injunctions. She’s officially broke as of twenty minutes ago."
Alejandro sat behind his desk, pouring a finger of single-malt scotch into a crystal glass. He hadn't touched a drop of alcohol in three years, but tonight, the fire felt necessary.
"What about her brother? Has Victor Vance been served?"
"Not yet," Marcus replied, pulling a tablet from his briefcase and sliding it across the desk. "Vance charter-flved out of JFK to Zurich four hours ago, right around the time our security teams locked down this estate. He knew the moment Vivian’s accounts blinked red. He’s cutting her loose."
"He thinks he can abandon her and walk away clean?" Alejandro let out a harsh, humorless laugh. "Vance doesn't know the kind of game we're playing now."
"That's not the only thing, Alejandro," Marcus said, his tone turning serious as he tapped the tablet screen to bring up a series of encrypted architectural schematics. "When we seized Vivian’s personal laptop from her dressing room, our cyber-forensics team cracked her local drive. Take a look at what she’s been accessing from the mansion’s mainframe."
Alejandro leaned forward, his eyes scanning the data streams.
It wasn't just personal correspondence or banking records. It was a complete, real-time diagnostic map of Castillo Enterprises’ primary automated shipping port in New Jersey—including the override codes for the security gantry cranes, the database of container manifests, and a series of scheduled shipments arriving from Rotterdam next Tuesday.
"She wasn't just playing house," Alejandro whispered, horror dawning on him. "She was setting up a catastrophic security breach. If those containers are tampered with..."
"They contain over fifty million dollars in specialized microchip components destined for government defense contractors," Marcus finished grimly. "If Meridian can sabotage the shipment and pin the blame on Castillo Enterprises for gross security negligence, your federal contracts will be immediately revoked, your export license suspended indefinitely, and your company stock will plummet ninety percent by Wednesday morning. They’ll force a fire-sale bankruptcy, and Meridian will buy your entire empire for pennies on the dollar."
The silence in the study was absolute.
Vivian wasn't just a sadistic sociopath who enjoyed torturing my wife in the basement. She was the operational anchor of an industrial sabotage campaign aimed at destroying everything my grandfather, my father, and I had spent seventy years building.
And she had been doing it right under my roof, using my own home as her command center.
"Where is she right now?" Alejandro asked, standing up so fast his chair scraped loudly against the Persian rug.
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"Locked in the east wing guest suite under two armed guards," Marcus said. "State police are en route with a warrant for kidnapping, assault, and industrial espionage. They’ll be here by sunrise."
"Sunrise is too long," Alejandro said, grabbing his suit jacket from the back of the chair. "I’m going to have a little conversation with my houseguest."
