Chapter 13 - The Price of a Crown
The steel door sealed before I reached it.
“Elena!”
My fists struck metal.
No answer came from the other side.
Enzo pressed one hand against his bleeding side and examined the control panel.
“Magnetic lock. Separate power source.”
Luca lay beside the shattered case.
The blade had entered below his ribs.
Maeve knelt over him, applying pressure.
“Stay awake,” she ordered.
Luca coughed blood.
“I’ve had better nights.”
Gabriel crawled toward him.
“Daddy?”
Luca’s entire face changed.
“I’m here.”
“You’re hurt.”
“Just a scratch.”
“It’s a lot of blood.”
“Moretti men are dramatic.”
Gabriel took his hand.
Luca looked at me.
“Get her.”
I wanted to.
Every part of me wanted to tear the door apart with my hands.
But the archive had begun locking down. Fireproof shutters divided the room. A countdown appeared on the wall.
04:52.
“What happens at zero?” Maeve asked.
Enzo examined the system.
“Thermite charges. They’re going to destroy the physical records.”
The upload continued at forty-one percent.
“If the system burns before completion, the Nine survives,” I said.
“If we stay, we burn too.”
Luca reached into his jacket and removed a small device.
“Damon gave me this to stop the transmission.”
A black switch waited beneath a plastic cover.
Enzo understood.
“It redirects power from the locks.”
“Open Elena’s door,” I said.
“The upload stops,” he replied.
There it was.
The choice Lorenzo believed would define me.
The evidence could destroy judges, police commanders, traffickers, murderers, and politicians. It could free people imprisoned through fabricated records. It could reveal the identities of missing children.
Or I could open one door.
Lorenzo watched from the far side of the archive, protected behind a descending glass partition.
“You finally understand leadership,” he called. “A king sacrifices one life to save thousands.”
Elena’s terrified face flashed in my mind.
Her offering me Bruno because she believed no one helped without payment.
Her hand inside mine at St. Catherine’s.
Her smile when I returned the first time.
I took the device from Luca.
Lorenzo smiled.
Then I flipped the switch.
The upload died at forty-three percent.
The steel door opened.
Lorenzo’s expression disappeared.
“A king might sacrifice her,” I said. “I’m not a king.”
I ran.
The corridor beyond the archive climbed beneath the cathedral.
Drops of blood marked the floor.
Damon had wounded himself on the shattered case.
I followed the trail into the crypt.
Elena’s voice echoed between tombs.
“Bruno will bite you.”
Damon laughed.
“That rat?”
“He’s smarter than you.”
I rounded the corner.
Damon held Elena near the edge of an open burial shaft. One arm was wrapped around her chest. His gun rested against her temple.
The shaft descended into darkness.
“Drop the weapon,” he said.
I obeyed.
“Kick it away.”
I did.
“You chose her over the archive.”
“Yes.”
“Then Nora’s work dies. Sofia’s work dies. Every person killed for that ledger becomes meaningless.”
“No.”
He frowned.
“The upload stopped.”
“At forty-three percent.”
“Exactly.”
“Enough to release thousands of names.”
“Not the Nine.”
“Anna already has a copy of Sofia’s smaller ledger.”
His confidence weakened.
“The commissioner will suppress it.”
“Not from every news organization receiving it.”
That was a lie.
Maybe.
Before entering the cathedral, Anna had promised to send the information if we did not return. Whether she succeeded, I did not know.
Damon dragged Elena closer to the shaft.
“You always relied on other people.”
“No. I finally learned to.”
A growl sounded behind him.
Bruno emerged between the tombs.
The puppy’s fur stood along his spine.
Damon glanced down.
Elena bit his hand.
He fired.
The bullet struck the ceiling.
Bruno lunged at his ankle.
I crossed the space and hit Damon before he regained control.
Elena fell away.
We crashed against a stone tomb.
Damon drove a knife into my shoulder.
I broke his wrist.
He headbutted me, then reached for the fallen gun.
Elena kicked it into the burial shaft.
Damon seized her jacket.
I grabbed his throat.
For one second, the three of us balanced at the edge.
Then the old stone beneath Damon cracked.
He fell backward.
His hand closed around my coat.
Elena grabbed my arm.
Damon hung over the darkness.
“Help me,” he gasped.
I thought of Sofia.
Nora.
Vittorio.
Every child erased into a file.
I could have released him.
Instead, I pulled.
Damon’s surprise lasted only a moment.
I dragged him back onto solid ground and struck him unconscious.
Elena stared at me.
“Why did you save him?”
“Because dying would let him escape judgment.”
Police sirens rose above the cathedral.
Real federal agents this time.
Anna had succeeded.
I carried Elena toward the archive.
She wrapped her arms around my neck.
“You picked me instead of the truth.”
“No.”
I looked at the child I had once met beneath a pawnshop awning.
“You are the truth.”
We reached the archive as the countdown passed one minute.
Maeve and Enzo were carrying Luca toward the stairs.
Gabriel held his father’s hand.
Lorenzo was gone.
The glass partition stood open.
A secret passage yawned behind it.
May you like
My grandfather had escaped with the final pages of the original ledger.
And according to the security screen, he was heading directly toward the city’s largest television station.
