Page 23 of Throne of Secrets

Satisfied with the phone's security, he turned his attention to the video feed from the hardware store. The system was laughably easy to access—no encryption, no multi-layer security protocols or even a simple password rotation. Ethan shook his head, equal parts annoyed and unsurprised by the suburban complacency.

The five-block stretch of their neighborhood was a self-contained bubble of middle-class normalcy: hardware stores, coffee shops, grocery stores, and a veil of respectability masking the quiet hum of everyday life. But Ethan knew better. He’d seen the worst humanity had to offer—firsthand and through the deep-dive research he’d conducted alongside his mentor at Guardian.

He generally liked people, but he didn’t trust them. His Guardian family operated under unyielding principles of truth and integrity. The rest of the world? Not so much.

As the street-level video feed loaded, a voice crackled into his earpiece.

“What are you working on?” his mentor’s voice asked, smooth and calm as always.

“My neighbor next door,” Ethan replied, clicking through the timestamped footage. “She had her dictation app open and?—”

“Yeah, I see,” his mentor interrupted.

Ethan’s lips twitched. Of course, he already knew. If it were on his computer, his mentor would have access. Ethan continued, “She recorded someone talking about killing someone.” He pressed on as he synchronized the hardware store's internal feed with the street-level cameras. His mentor's cursor appeared on the other side of the screen, activating the facial recognition software.

The two of them worked in near silence, each instinctively handling their part of the task. Ethan tracked street-level activity while his mentor ran the faces through Guardian's deep-learning recognition system.

“So,” his mentor drawled after a minute, “what are you going to do about this dude, Kyle?”

Ethan huffed out a laugh. “Do you know everything?”

His mentor made a noncommittal noise. “Yeah … pretty much. Oh—there you go. One hit.”

The display shifted as the timestamped information aligned with the footage from the street cameras. Ethan’s eyes locked on the new data as a license plate appeared crisply on the screen. “Running it through DMV,” he said, tapping a command into the keyboard.

“Are you avoiding the Kyle question?” his mentor asked, amusement evident in his tone.

Ethan chuckled. “No, not at all. I’ve got to fix a stair step today, so I’m going to visit the hardware store.”

“Yeah, I saw you fall through the steps.”

Ethan froze, fingers stilling on the keyboard. “Are you hacking into my camera system?”

His mentor's soft laugh crackled through the earpiece. “What would you do if you were expecting me to show up online, and I didn’t?”

Ethan frowned. “Wait. Why were you expecting me to be online?”

“It’s Thursday, isn’t it? Thursday’s your off day from working out, so you usually log in earlier.”

Ethan shook his head and let out a low laugh. “Human beings are creatures of habit, aren’t we?”

“Indeed, we are,” his mentor agreed. “Okay, here we go. Facial recognition hit. Meet your two perps.”

The data streamed across Ethan's screen—mugshots, arrest records, known aliases. The scrolling text halted abruptly as the program displayed their criminal affiliations.

Ethan’s jaw tightened. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he muttered, leaning closer. “They’re with the Mafia.”

“Excuse me?” his mentor asked, his tone instantly shifting from casual to sharp.

Ethan straightened in his chair, eyes still locked on the screen. “The guys Star recorded … They're connected to a Mafia family out of Manhattan.”

His mentor let out a low whistle. “Looks like your neighbor just wandered into a whole lot more trouble than she realized.”

Ethan's stomach knotted. “Yeah,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “And now, it’s my job to ensure she survives it. She thought she stumbled into a setup for a Mafia hit,” Ethan said, still shaking his head. “She even watchedThe Godfatherlast night when she couldn’t sleep.”

“Why?” The genuine curiosity was new.

He sighed. “To get tips on how to survive a hit.”

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