Chapter 3 - The Master Code
The security code belonged to Vittorio.
At least officially.
Only three people had ever been authorized to use it.
Vittorio.
The head of security.
And the technician who installed the system.
Marcus was none of them.
Yet the access logs showed Vittorio’s master code being entered repeatedly on nights when he was sleeping in hotel rooms hundreds of miles away.
Vittorio called his attorney and then contacted the security company.
He did not warn Bianca.
He did not warn Marcus.
For the next hour, he behaved with an unsettling calm.
Lucy remained upstairs with Emma and a longtime daytime nanny who was called back to the house immediately.
Bianca locked herself in the guest suite.
Marcus tried to leave.
Vittorio’s private security team prevented him from taking a company-owned laptop and several electronic devices from the premises.
Marcus was free to walk out.
The devices were not.
He stayed.
That told Vittorio almost everything he needed to know.
The security company confirmed that remote administrator privileges had been created eight months earlier.
The authorization appeared to carry Vittorio’s electronic signature.
Vittorio had never signed it.
Eight months earlier was also when Bianca had persuaded him to hire Marcus as a security and risk-management consultant.
She had described Marcus as an old family friend.
Vittorio had never questioned it.
Now he did.
Emma remembered the change clearly.
Before Marcus arrived, Bianca had been impatient with Lucy but careful.
After Marcus gained access to the mansion’s systems, the cruelty became bolder.
Doors closed.
Cameras failed.
Staff schedules changed.
Several employees unexpectedly quit.
Vittorio had blamed turnover.
Emma had not.
She had kept copies of text messages from two former employees who described Bianca humiliating them after they tried to intervene around Lucy.
One former nanny had written that she was afraid something terrible would eventually happen.
Vittorio’s attorney began preserving every message, video and access log.
Then the security company found the first undeniable piece of evidence.
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The false administrator account had been created from a laptop registered to Marcus Hale.
But it had been authorized using a verification code sent to Bianca’s personal phone.
