Chapter 7 - The Man Inside the WallsThe Moretti headquarters occupied four floors above a luxury furniture showroom.
Lyra had passed the building hundreds of times without knowing what existed upstairs.
Now she sat in a conference room surrounded by twelve men who looked deeply unhappy that she existed.
Noah stood at the head of the table.
Paulie stood behind him.
The captured security badge lay in the center.
“No one leaves,” Noah said.
Nobody argued.
Lyra counted faces.
Some she recognized from the restaurant.
Others were older.
Managers.
Captains.
Men whose expensive watches probably represented years of her rent.
One man near the far window irritated her immediately.
Not because he looked dangerous.
Because his suit fit badly.
She tried not to stare.
She failed.
Noah noticed.
Of course he did.
“What?”
She shook her head.
“Nothing.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Lyra.”
“This is not the time.”
“When you say that, it means it is exactly the time.”
Twelve gangsters looked between them.
Lyra sighed.
“That man’s jacket.”
The man near the window frowned.
“My jacket?”
“The sleeve was shortened recently.”
He looked offended.
“No, it wasn’t.”
“Yes, it was.”
Noah’s attention sharpened.
Lyra stood.
“The original buttonholes were functional. Whoever altered it couldn’t shorten from the cuff without destroying them, so they removed the sleeve at the shoulder.”
Silence.
She approached.
“May I?”
The man looked at Noah.
Noah nodded.
Lyra pinched the fabric near the armhole.
“Machine stitching. Black polyester thread.”
“So?”
“So this jacket is Italian. Hand-finished. The rest of the seams use silk.”
Noah’s voice became quiet.
“Who altered it?”
The man hesitated.
“No one.”
Lyra looked at his shoes.
Tiny pale fibers clung near the sole.
Canvas.
Old canvas.
Exactly like the scraps from the warehouse chute.
Her stomach dropped.
“Noah.”
He saw her face.
The room changed instantly.
Paulie’s gun appeared.
The man lunged.
Chaos exploded.
A chair overturned.
Someone shouted.
The suspect reached inside his jacket.
Paulie fired once.
The man’s arm snapped backward.
His gun fell.
Noah crossed the room and drove him against the table.
“Name.”
The man gritted his teeth.
“Go to hell.”
Noah looked at Lyra.
“Leave.”
“No.”
“Lyra.”
“I found him.”
“And now I’m handling him.”
Something in his tone told her the next part would not be civilized.
She walked out.
This time, because she chose to.
Ten minutes later Noah emerged.
His knuckles were bleeding.
Lyra did not ask.
“Who?”
“Marco Delaney.”
She knew the name vaguely.
One of Noah’s logistics men.
“Caruso?”
“Luca.”
Her stomach turned.
“Your uncle?”
“Marco says Luca gave Vincent access to our security systems.”
“So they’re still working together.”
“Or Marco is lying.”
“What about September eighth?”
Noah looked toward the windows.
“Port Fourteen receives a shipment tomorrow night. Officially medical equipment.”
“Unofficially?”
“Guns.”
Lyra folded her arms.
“For who?”
“That’s the interesting part.”
He handed her a printed manifest.
The purchasing company was a private security contractor with federal clients.
Lyra frowned.
“Government?”
“Maybe.”
“You think Luca and Vincent are selling illegal weapons through legitimate contracts?”
“I think they’ve been doing it for twenty years.”
“And my father documented it.”
“Yes.”
She sat slowly.
“If the ledger proves that—”
“It destroys Luca, Vincent, and half the people who owe them favors.”
“Then give it to the FBI.”
Noah laughed once.
No humor.
“My uncle built relationships inside federal law enforcement before you were born.”
“So who can we trust?”
“No one.”
“That seems to be your favorite answer.”
“It has kept me alive.”
She looked at his bloody knuckles.
“Has it?”
Noah’s expression shifted.
That night, Lyra returned to the new apartment across from her old building.
Alone.
Noah hated it.
He honored the agreement.
That mattered.
Two guards remained downstairs, but he did not come up.
At eleven forty-three, her phone buzzed.
NOAH: Lock the balcony door.
LYRA: I’m on the 14th floor.
NOAH: People climb.
LYRA: Normal people don’t.
NOAH: Exactly.
She smiled despite herself.
LYRA: Locked.
Thirty seconds passed.
NOAH: Bedroom window?
LYRA: Good night, Noah.
NOAH: Lyra.
LYRA: Locked.
NOAH: Good.
She put the phone down.
Then heard a sound behind the wall.
A faint scrape.
She froze.
Another scrape.
Not the pipes.
Not the elevator.
Inside the wall.
Her pulse climbed.
She quietly reached for the kitchen knife.
The sound came again.
Near the service closet.
She moved toward it.
Every instinct screamed to call Noah.
Pride told her not to.
Common sense won.
She dialed.
He answered before the first ring completed.
“What?”
“There’s somebody in the wall.”
Silence.
Then his voice changed.
“Get out.”
“I’m checking—”
“GET OUT.”
The service panel burst open.
A man came through.
Lyra screamed.
He wore dark maintenance clothes.
His hand reached for her.
She slashed wildly with the knife.
The blade caught his forearm.
He cursed.
Lyra ran.
He grabbed the back of her shirt.
Fabric tore.
She slammed her elbow backward.
He grunted.
The phone fell.
Noah’s voice continued shouting from the floor.
Lyra kicked backward and connected with a knee.
The man released her.
She reached the hallway.
A second man stepped from the stairwell.
Of course.
Because apparently one intruder was too easy.
Lyra backed up.
The first man emerged from the apartment behind her.
Trapped.
Her eyes dropped to the fire alarm.
She pulled it.
Sirens exploded through the corridor.
Sprinklers activated instantly.
Water blasted down.
The second man swore.
Apartment doors opened.
People shouted.
Lyra ran toward the nearest elderly couple.
“CALL POLICE!”
The first attacker lunged again.
Before he reached her, the elevator doors opened.
Noah came out like violence given human form.
She never understood afterward how he arrived that fast.
He hit the first man so hard the attacker crashed into the wall.
Paulie took the second.
Everything became noise.
Water.
Sirens.
Fists.
Neighbors screaming.
Lyra stood barefoot in the flood until Noah grabbed her face.
“Look at me.”
She did.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
He pulled her against him.
His body shook.
Noah Moretti was shaking.
That terrified her more than the attack.
“I called you,” she whispered.
“I know.”
“I didn’t try to handle it alone.”
“I know.”
“You were right about people climbing.”
“That is not remotely important right now.”
Despite everything, she laughed.
A hysterical little sound.
Noah held her tighter.
Later, investigators found a maintenance tunnel connecting the service shafts.
The attackers had entered from an unfinished floor.
Professional.
Planned.
One survived questioning.
One did not.
The survivor gave them a name.
Not Vincent.
Not Luca.
Paulie entered Noah’s study at three in the morning.
His face looked wrong.
“Boss.”
Noah stood by the window.
“What?”
Paulie glanced at Lyra.
Then back.
“The order came from Moretti authorization.”
Noah’s jaw tightened.
“Whose?”
Paulie swallowed.
“Your father’s old code.”
Silence.
Noah’s father had been dead nine years.
“That’s impossible,” Lyra said.
Paulie placed a phone on the desk.
“The authorization was used tonight.”
Noah stared at the screen.
Someone had resurrected a dead man’s credentials.
Someone with access older than Noah’s own command.
Lyra thought about her father’s recording.
Luca created wars he later offered to solve.
She looked at Noah.
“This isn’t about killing me.”
“What?”
“They want you reacting.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Explain.”
“Dominic. The shop. The warehouse. Tonight. Every attack makes you more violent, more isolated, more suspicious.”
Paulie slowly nodded.
Lyra continued.
“What happens if your captains stop trusting you?”
Noah went still.
“They replace me.”
“With?”
The answer entered the room before anyone spoke it.
Luca.
The respectable uncle.
The experienced statesman.
The man who could promise stability after Noah Moretti went mad over a tailor.
Lyra looked at him.
“They’re not trying to win a war.”
“They’re trying to make my people think I already lost one,” Noah said.
His phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
His expression became empty.
“What happened?” Paulie asked.
Noah lowered the phone.
“Three of my warehouses were raided by federal agents twenty minutes ago.”
Lyra’s blood chilled.
“How did they know where?”
Noah looked at the old ledger.
“Someone gave them exactly what they needed.”
The next morning, every newspaper in the city carried the same headline.
MORETTI ORGANIZATION UNDER FEDERAL INVESTIGATION.
And beneath it was a photograph of Noah.
Beside him, entering the burned tailor shop two days earlier, was Lyra.
Her name appeared in the second paragraph.
May you like
For the first time, she was no longer merely Noah Moretti’s secret weakness.
She was public.
