My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 507

Chapter 507

Raphael

Six monitors cast a cold blue glow across the room. Lines of code crawled across two screens. Financial records occupied another. Security feeds filled a fourth. The remaining monitors displayed data I had been collecting for the last three hours.

My fingers moved across the keyboard. The number Leone Caruso had been using to harass Gianna sat in the middle of one screen.

Most people thought a phone number was just a phone number. It wasn’t. Everything left a trail, every message every connection, every tower handshake, every account tied to it.

People believed technology made them anonymous.

People were idiots.

I leaned back in my chair as another set of information populated across the monitor.

The burner phone Leone was currently using had connected to the same public network twice within fourteen days.

My fingers moved again. One database became three, three became six, patterns emerged addresses, transactions, travel records, hotel bookings.

A few minutes later I found what I was looking for. I stared at the screen. Leone hadn’t crossed state lines. He was still sitting in Philadelphia.

I opened another window and began dismantling everything Leone had built around that number. The process wasn’t complicated, just time-consuming.

Within twenty minutes, several accounts connected to that phone ceased functioning. Within thirty, backup accounts disappeared too. Within forty, access points vanished one after another, not deleted, destroyed.

Deletion could be recovered.

Destruction was permanent.

By the time I finished, Leone’s favorite method of contacting Gianna no longer existed.

I looked at the clock, then pressed a button on my desk phone, “Send Ciro into my office now.”

The response came immediately, “Yes, sir.”

Seven minutes later a knock sounded against the door, “Come in.”

The door opened and Ciro stepped inside. He looked different from the last time I’d seen him, less confident and more careful. The months at the docks had apparently been educational.

Pain was an excellent teacher.

He stopped in front of my desk, “Boss.”

I gestured toward the chair. He remained standing, it was either respect or fear. Possibly both.

“Ciro.”

His jaw tightened slightly, “I know you’re still angry. I deserved it after everything the Capone family has done for me, I shouldn’t have put one of you in-“he cut himself off, “I never meant for anything bad to happen to her.”

His voice was honest. Most men lied poorly but Ciro wasn’t lying.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify