Chapter 9 - The Trial of Devotion
The silence in the office was instantaneous, suffocating, and terrifyingly absolute.
Sadi felt the blood drain from her face in a cold, rushing wave. “What? Marcus, no! I didn't... I didn't touch the Marseille manifests!”
Marcus pulled a manila folder from under his arm and laid it on Victor’s desk. “The digital log on the main server shows Miss Hayes’s user account accessed the container files at three fifteen yesterday afternoon. Twenty minutes later, an encrypted transmission was sent from a IP address located inside the East Wing.”
Sadi stared at the manila folder as if it were a venomous snake. “No! That’s impossible! I was with my brother at St. Jude’s at three fifteen yesterday! You drove me there yourself, Marcus!”
“Your account was accessed from the terminal in your private suite, Miss Hayes,” Marcus said coldly, his hands resting near his coat lapel. “Someone used your security keycard.”
Sadi looked frantically from Marcus to Victor.
Victor had not moved. He stood behind his desk, his face an unreadable mask of stone, his ice-gray eyes fixed on her face with an intensity that made it difficult for her to breathe.
“Victor,” Sadi begged, using his first name for the first time since she had entered his service. Her voice trembled with desperate terror. “Please... look at me. I didn't betray you. I swear on my brother’s life, I have never spoken a word about your business to anyone!”
Victor walked around his desk with slow, measured steps. He stopped two feet in front of her, looking down into her panicked brown eyes.
“In my world, Sadi,” Victor said softly, “a breach like this results in immediate execution. No trial. No debate.”
Sadi did not run. She did not back away. She stood her ground, tears spilling over her lashes, looking directly into his cold eyes with absolute, unflinching honesty.
“Search my room,” she whispered. “Check the security cameras in the hallway. Check my phone. Do whatever you have to do. But do not believe for one second that I would ever betray the man who saved my brother’s life.”
Victor stared into her eyes for three agonizingly long seconds. The tension in the room was so thick it felt as though a single spark would ignite the air.
Then, Victor turned his head toward Marcus.
“Who had access to the East Wing cleaning keycards yesterday afternoon?” Victor asked flatly.
Marcus blinked, taken aback by the question. “The... the interior staff rotation. Mrs. Gable keeps the master log.”
“Call Julian,” Victor commanded, his voice sharp as a steel razor. “Have him bring the cleaning logs for the East Wing between two and four o'clock yesterday.”
Ten minutes later, Julian entered the room holding a black ledger. He laid it on the desk, opening it to yesterday’s date.
Victor scanned the names with a cold, searching eye. His finger stopped at the bottom of the column.
“Carlo,” Victor said softly.
Carlo was a junior lieutenant—a nephew of a retired boss who had been assigned to oversee the East Wing’s maintenance schedule.
“Bring him here,” Victor ordered.
Five minutes later, two armed guards shoved a pale, sweating young man in a leather jacket into the library. Carlo looked frantically around the room, his eyes darting from Victor’s hard face to the armed lieutenants standing by the doors.
“Boss!” Carlo stammered. “What’s going on? What did I do?”
Victor picked up the silver tablet from his desk, clicking the screen on.
“At three ten yesterday afternoon,” Victor said smoothly, “a camera in the East Wing corridor captured you using a master passkey to enter Suite 2B while Sadi was at the hospital. You were inside for eight minutes.”
Carlo’s face turned from pale to green. “I... I was checking the plumbing! There was a report of a leak in the marble bathroom—”
“There was no leak,” Victor interrupted, his voice dropping into a register of terrifying finality. “You stole her security keycard, accessed her terminal, transmitted the container codes to the feds, and replaced the card before she returned.”
Victor took one step toward the young man.
“The feds paid you two hundred thousand dollars to frame Sadi Hayes,” Victor said. “Because your handlers in Boston knew that if I believed she betrayed me, I would execute her, shattering the security of this house and driving a wedge into my inner circle.”
Carlo dropped to his knees on the carpet, weeping hysterically. “Boss, please! I was in debt! They threatened my family! Please, Mr. Costello, have mercy!”
Victor did not look down at the kneeling traitor. He looked at Marcus.
“Remove him,” Victor said flatly. “Take him to the harbor. Clear the dock issue with our federal contacts using his confession.”
The guards dragged the screaming, sobbing young man out of the library, the heavy oak doors slamming shut behind them, restoring silence to the grand room.
Sadi stood near the hearth, her body trembling from the sudden, overwhelming release of tension.
Victor turned toward her. He walked across the room, stopping inches away from her, reaching out his long, broad hand to gently cup her jaw. His fingers were warm against her cold skin.
May you like
“You didn't doubt me,” Sadi whispered, looking up into his eyes.
“I never doubted you for a second, Sadi,” Victor said softly, his thumb gently wiping a tear from her cheek. “I know what loyalty looks like. I saw it in your eyes the night you were bleeding on my floor.”
