Chapter 1 - The Cipher in the Collars
Luca Moretti stared at me, his icy gray eyes unreadable as he stood beside Titan, the massive mastiff whose heavy head still rested against my trembling palm. Surrounding us, the five other mastiffs sat motionless, like stone statues awaiting their master’s command. The armed guards who had bounded across the courtyard moments ago stopped in their tracks, their rifles lowered, as hushed whispers rippled through the security detail.
“Your father didn’t die twelve years ago,” Luca repeated, his deep voice carrying a gravity that made the air feel thick. “Samuel Walker planned every single detail of that night. The burned car, the left-behind watch, the wallet—it was all a staged execution to erase his existence from the earth.”
“Why?” I whispered, my thumb tracing the worn leather collar around Titan’s neck. Beneath my touch, my fingers caught on something cold and metallic embedded into the leather, hidden underneath the brass studs. It was a tiny cylinder, no larger than a key charm. “If he survived, why leave me? Why let me grieve for twelve years?”
Luca took two slow, calculated steps toward me. At thirty-two, he commanded the Moretti empire with an iron grip, but right now, his gaze held something terrifyingly personal. “Because twelve years ago, the men who wanted him dead were sitting at my father’s dinner table. Samuel realized that if he kept you with him, you would be hunted down before your seventh birthday. The only way to keep you safe was to make the world believe the Walker bloodline was extinct.”
Luca motioned toward the grand stone estate rising behind us. “Follow me inside. It’s time you learn the truth about the house you’re standing in.”
Titan didn't leave my side. As I walked up the sweeping marble steps, the gigantic dog walked shoulder-to-shoulder with me, his massive body serving as a physical barrier between me and the estate guards.
Inside Luca’s private study—a cavernous room lined with dark mahogany shelves and stained-glass windows—Luca walked behind his heavy oak desk and opened a hidden wall safe behind a oil painting. He pulled out a worn leather-bound ledger and laid it flat on the desk.
“Twelve years ago, my father was betrayed by someone within his inner council,” Luca explained, leaning against the desk. “A syndicate known as the Iron Syndicate infiltrated our shipping lines. Your father was our chief head of security and tactical intelligence. When the ambush happened on the highway, Samuel took a bullet meant for me. I was twenty years old. He pulled me out of a burning wreckage, hid me in the woods, and then drove his own car into a ditch, setting it ablaze to create a decoy.”
My breath caught in my throat. “And Titan?”
“Samuel brought Titan to me three days later,” Luca said. “He told me to keep the dog safe on the estate premises, away from public view. He made me swear a solemn vow: that when you turned twenty-one and applied for a security clearance job—a job he subtly steered you toward through anonymous trust funds—I was to let you enter the grounds without warning the guards who you were.”
Luca pointed at Titan’s collar. “He said Titan would know you. Titan was trained never to approach a stranger. If Titan accepted you, it meant you were ready to inherit what your father left behind.”
I reached down and twisted the tiny metal cylinder concealed in Titan’s collar. With a soft click, it opened. Inside was a rolled strip of micro-paper covered in micrographic handwriting and a small silver key stamped with a three-digit number: 402.
“What is 402?” I asked, my heart hammering against my ribs.
Luca’s eyes darkened. “A safety deposit box at the Zurich Mercantile Bank in Manhattan. But getting to it won't be simple. Samuel left instructions that the key must never be used until the traitor inside the Moretti family was identified.”
Before I could ask another question, the heavy double doors of the study burst open.
Standing on the threshold was Uncle Marco—Luca’s eldest uncle, a sharp-featured man with silver hair, flanked by two bodyguards holding suppressed handguns.
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“Luca!” Marco barked, his eyes sweeping across the room until they locked onto me, then onto Titan standing defensively at my hip. “Why is an unvetted staff member in your private quarters? And why is that beast out of his enclosure?”
Titan let out a low, rumbling growl that vibrated through the floorboards.
