The Red Sight Over His Chest

Chapter 3 Her Empty Shoes

A week passed. Then a second. Sienna never called.

Meanwhile, encrypted channels failed for hours at a time. Shipments sat in the wrong ports because no one could fix the routing codes. Messages arrived after their operations had already ended. Every department sent its problem to me, and every man who promised a quick repair came back with another excuse.

Chloe recovered quickly from the warehouse. Without Sienna in the house, she stopped asking permission.

One afternoon she walked into Sienna's command center. Steel cabinets lined the walls, and active monitors covered the main desk.

"Dante, this room is grim." Chloe turned in a slow circle. "It would make a much better dressing room. It's close to your suite."

Few people knew the room existed. Sienna had run half my network from that desk.

I pictured her hearing what Chloe had done with it.

"Fine. Have the maids clear it."

Chloe smiled. "Thank you! I'll put Sienna's old things in trash bags. We don't need her clutter."

I left her choosing a wall for the mirrors.

The third week brought more than delays.

Marco called on my private line. "Boss, the Balkan shipment is gone. Border agents intercepted it at the Albanian border. Someone compromised the transport codes."

The cargo held five million dollars in advanced weapons.

Before Marco finished, another call came through. Our informants across Eastern Europe had lost access to every secure channel Sienna built.

Some refused to use the backup lines. The rest could no longer authenticate themselves, which made every message useless even when it arrived.

That night, a rival family raided our Prague safe house, one of the network's most important European hubs. We lost three of our best men there.

The source of the breach took Marco less than an hour to find. Chloe had tried to help by rerouting a message through a commercial server. The original warning had been secure until she touched it. Anyone watching the new route could have followed it straight to Prague.

I crossed the mansion before Marco finished explaining. Sienna's old command center was half empty, its screens unplugged and turned toward the wall. Two black trash bags stood in the corner.

I kicked the nearest one.

The plastic tore. Files slid across the floor with a worn classic novel and a small silver locket. An old leather medical pouch rolled under the desk, spilling bandages and sterile wipes.

A folded sheet of paper landed face up beside my shoe.

I reached down and opened it.

It was a sonogram. The clinic information was printed across the top. At the bottom were two lines I read three times.

*Gestational age: 6 weeks.*

The appointment date was the day before the fire.