Chapter 1
“Let me see what’s got you so terrified.”
Marcus stopped moving beneath the collapsed orthotic cart.
I did not look away from him when I spoke to Dr. Emma.
“Cut it.”
Lily began shaking again.
I immediately went to her.
“Daddy…”
“I’m here.”
She gripped both handles of the rubber boot.
“Something moves.”
“I know.”
Emma slid the blunt shears carefully beneath the boot shaft and began opening the rubber from the top downward. Marcus tried to rise.
Rafe planted one hand against his shoulder.
“Stay.”
The final strip separated.
Emma peeled the boot away.
Something black dropped onto the examination table.
Click.
Then rolled.
Lily screamed and buried her face against me.
It was not alive.
A black metal capsule no larger than my thumb had been hidden inside a hollowed section of the boot lining.
A tiny green light blinked once.
Then again.
Emma stared.
“That isn’t medical equipment.”
I picked it up.
Marcus whispered:
“It’s a safety tracker.”
I slowly looked at him.
“You just attacked a doctor to protect a safety tracker?”
He said nothing.
Leo came closer.
Bloodless scrape on one knuckle. Fury everywhere else.
He pointed toward the capsule.
“That has a microphone.”
I looked.
He was right.
A tiny perforated opening sat beside the indicator light.
Lily had not simply been tracked.
Someone had been listening to her.
Emma examined the inside of the cut boot.
Her expression darkened.
“There’s more.”
A rigid foam insert had been glued beneath the liner, making the boot deliberately tighter around Lily’s calf. That was why she had been shaking whenever anyone tried to remove it.
Not injury.
Fear.
Then Emma found a printed serial code inside the capsule.
BELLANDI CLUB SECURITY — M3.
I knew every security designation in this building.
M3 belonged to one office.
Marcus’s.
I looked down at my cousin.
May you like
He stopped pretending.
My three-year-old daughter had walked into a clinic wearing a microphone connected directly to Marcus Bellandi.
