Chapter 9 - The Ghost Frequency
Marcus was on his feet before the sound had even faded. The tenderness vanished, replaced instantly by the lethal predator.
We moved into the bedroom.
Matthew was awake, sitting bolt upright in the center of the bed. He wasn't crying. His head was tilted toward the open window, where the night breeze moved the sheer curtains.
“Matthew?” I called gently, approaching the bed. “What is it, sweetie?”
“The radio,” Matthew whispered.
Marcus frowned, looking around the room. “There is no radio in this room, Matthew.”
“Not in the room,” the boy said, his little brow furrowing in deep concentration. “In the air. It’s buzzing. Like the transformer behind the Columbia building.”
My blood ran cold.
“Columbia?” I asked, sitting on the edge of the mattress. “Matthew, how do you know what the transformer at Columbia sounded like?”
“The man who came to see Aunt Bianca last month,” Matthew said plainly. “He had the same buzzing in his pocket. It smells like ozone. And sour paper.”
Marcus’s hand dropped to the butt of his gun. “Bianca?”
“Wait,” I said, standing up, my scientific mind racing through files and memories from two years ago. “Sour paper and ozone. Marcus... that’s not a standard police or mafia frequency. That’s an experimental micro-transmitter. When I was at Columbia, my research on acoustic remapping was funded by an external defense contractor called Cortex Bio-Dynamics.”
Marcus turned his head, his eyes narrowing into slits. “Cortex Bio-Dynamics is a subsidiary of Moretti Pharmaceuticals.”
The puzzle pieces snapped together with horrifying clarity.
“My thesis advisor didn't steal my research to publish it,” I breathed, the nausea rising in my throat. “He sold it! He sold the sensory mapping protocols to Silvio Moretti! That’s how they built the acoustic disorientation weapon they used tonight. They weren't guessing about the boys' sensitivities—they had my actual lab notes! They were using my own clinical data to design a weapon to liquefy the boys' brains!”
Marcus didn't roar. He didn't smash anything.
He became terrifyingly, unnervingly calm. That was when Marcus DeLuca was at his most lethal.
“Grigori,” Marcus spoke into his lapel communicator.
“Yes, Boss?”
“Bring my sister to the ballroom,” Marcus said softly. “Now.”
***
Ten minutes later, Bianca DeLuca stood in the center of the ballroom under the glare of the restored work lights.
She was wearing a silk robe, but her hair was disheveled, and her haughty demeanor was cracking under the presence of four armed guards who had their weapons drawn and aimed at her chest.
Marcus sat in a high-backed leather chair at the end of the room, looking like a medieval king preparing to pass a sentence of execution. I stood beside him, Luke and Matthew safely sequestered upstairs under Grigori’s personal watch.
“Marcus, this is an outrage!” Bianca shrieked, clutching her robe to her throat. “You drag me from my bed like a common whore? Because that academic stray made up a story?”
Marcus didn't move. He reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a small, black electronic device the size of a thumb drive. It was an RF scanner he had pulled from Dante’s body.
He pressed a button.
A steady, pulsing *beep* filled the room.
Marcus stood up and walked toward his sister. With every step he took, the beeping grew faster, more frantic.
He stopped three inches from her. He brought the scanner to the hollow of her collarbone.
The device shrieked with a solid, unbroken tone.
Marcus reached out, took the delicate platinum necklace she was wearing—a diamond-encrusted crucifix—and tore it from her throat with a violent jerk.
He threw the pendant onto the marble floor and crushed it beneath the heel of his Italian leather boot.
The platinum casing cracked, revealing a micro-transponder no larger than a grain of rice.
Bianca’s face drained of every drop of color.
“You wore the target,” Marcus said, his voice flat, devoid of rage, which made it infinitely more terrifying. “You gave Dante the entry codes. And you let Moretti’s technicians map the acoustic profile of this house.”
“They promised me they wouldn't hurt the boys!” Bianca wailed, dropping to her knees, her manicured hands clawing at Marcus’s trousers. “Silvio promised, Marcus! He said he only wanted you! He said the boys would be sent to a clinic in Switzerland—a real clinic! He said you were dragging the family into ruin with your obsession!”
Marcus looked down at his sister with a gaze that would have frozen an open flame.
“You gave my children’s executioners the frequency of their own ears,” Marcus whispered.
“Marcus, please! I’m your sister! We have the same blood!”
Marcus stepped back, pulling his trousers from her grasp. He turned his back on her, walking toward the doors.
“Lev,” Marcus said quietly.
“Yes, Don DeLuca?”
“Take her to the cellar,” Marcus commanded. “Put her in the room next to Dante. Do not give her water until she tells you where Silvio Moretti is running the mobile uplink.”
“Marcus! No! Marcus!” Bianca’s screams echoed off the ballroom walls as two guards hauled her across the floor by her arms, her heels skidding against the marble until the heavy doors cut off the sound.
I stood frozen in the corner of the room, my stomach churning.
Marcus stopped in front of me. His face was a mask of cold stone, but his hands were trembling slightly at his sides.
“This is who I am, Ellen,” he said, looking at me with eyes that challenged me to flee. “This is the family you saved. We consume our own blood when it rots. Are you still sure you want to stay in this house?”
I looked at the shattered tracker on the floor, then up at the man who had torn his own sister from his life to protect his children.
“Moretti weaponized my life's work,” I said, my voice hardening with a resolve I didn't know I possessed. “He used my research to try and murder two six-year-old boys. You don't have to ask if I’m staying, Marcus.”
I stepped forward until my boots touched his.
May you like
“I’m going to help you destroy him.”
***
