Chapter 12 - Three Shots in the Garden
No one intended to obey the note.
Everyone understood they might have no choice.
Celeste confirmed that the Saint Agnes terminal could trigger the archive’s release. Vittorio would need Sophia’s implant and Celeste’s phrase key, but he could begin the emergency sequence without them.
Once initiated, they would have thirty minutes before every file was distributed to newspapers, agencies, private servers, and unknown recipients.
“Why would he destroy himself?” Cole asked.
Celeste looked toward the chapel doors.
“Because Vittorio would rather expose every sinner than stand trial as one.”
At two fifteen in the morning, they approached the ruins of Saint Agnes.
The clinic stood thirty miles north of the city behind an abandoned convent. Fire had destroyed the upper floors, but stone foundations remained beneath dead vines.
Sophia wore a communication device beneath her coat.
Celeste walked beside her.
Alessandro followed at a distance, hidden by the remains of the garden wall.
Cole’s officers surrounded the property.
Lucia had been ordered to remain at the estate with Emma.
Ten minutes before they entered the ruins, Lucia called.
Emma was gone.
Again.
This time no guard had betrayed them.
The child had climbed through a service cupboard after hearing Isabella’s voice through an old intercom.
A vehicle had been waiting near the gardener’s road.
Vittorio had planned beyond the chapel.
At Saint Agnes, lights appeared beneath the foundation.
Sophia and Celeste entered through a collapsed stairwell.
The underground room remained nearly untouched by fire.
Metal cabinets lined the walls.
Old surveillance equipment surrounded a central terminal.
Vittorio stood beside it.
His wounded shoulder had been bandaged.
Isabella held Emma near the far wall.
The child wore her pale-blue dress beneath Lucia’s coat.
Her face was wet with tears.
“Mommy.”
Sophia’s control nearly broke.
“I’m here.”
Vittorio gestured toward the terminal.
“Sit.”
Sophia obeyed.
Celeste remained standing.
“You will give me the phrase.”
“No.”
Vittorio looked at Isabella.
She tightened her hand around Emma’s shoulder but did not hurt her.
Celeste’s eyes filled.
“You are using our daughter exactly as Lorenzo used everyone else.”
“Our daughter chose weakness.”
Isabella flinched.
Vittorio did not notice.
He activated the terminal.
A countdown appeared.
29:59.
29:58.
“If the archive opens,” he said, “thousands of lives collapse.”
“Including yours,” Sophia replied.
“I will not be alive to care.”
Isabella looked at him.
“What does that mean?”
Vittorio ignored her.
Celeste understood first.
“He never planned to leave.”
Alessandro moved through the outer corridor.
A guard appeared near the stairwell.
Alessandro struck him silently and took his weapon.
Cole’s officers waited for his signal.
Inside, Vittorio placed a medical extraction tool on the table.
Sophia stared at it.
“You cannot remove the implant safely.”
“I do not need you alive afterward.”
Emma began crying.
Isabella looked at her father.
“You said no one would be hurt.”
Vittorio smiled without warmth.
“I said the child would be returned.”
“To whom?”
“To whoever remains.”
Isabella’s face changed.
The last illusion died.
Vittorio took Emma’s arm.
Isabella pulled the child back.
“No.”
He slapped his daughter.
The sound echoed through the underground room.
Celeste moved forward.
Vittorio raised his pistol.
Alessandro entered.
“Let them go.”
Vittorio turned.
Three shots followed.
The first came from Vittorio.
The second from Alessandro.
The third from the garden above.
Vittorio’s bullet struck a metal cabinet.
Alessandro’s struck Vittorio in the leg.
The third shattered the terminal screen.
The countdown continued on a secondary monitor.
18:42.
A man fell through the doorway behind Alessandro.
Marco Rizzi.
He held a rifle and leaned against the wall, pale from blood loss.
He had escaped police custody from the hospital.
“Still protecting machines,” Alessandro said.
Marco looked at Emma.
“No.”
He raised the rifle toward Vittorio.
“I am protecting the child.”
Vittorio fired.
The bullet entered Marco’s chest near the earlier wound.
Marco fired back.
Vittorio fell beside the terminal.
Isabella screamed.
Marco collapsed near the garden steps.
Alessandro kicked Vittorio’s weapon away.
Cole’s officers entered and restrained him.
Sophia reached Emma.
The little girl wrapped around her mother.
Celeste moved to the terminal.
“The screen is destroyed.”
“Can you stop the release?” Alessandro asked.
“Not without the full interface.”
The countdown showed sixteen minutes.
Marco coughed.
His eyes found Celeste.
“Elena built a manual relay.”
“Where?”
“Garden.”
Alessandro knelt beside him.
“Why help us?”
Marco looked toward Isabella.
“She became Vittorio.”
His breathing weakened.
“I told myself loyalty excused everything. Then I watched her use the child.”
Alessandro placed pressure against the wound.
“Stay awake.”
Marco gave a faint smile.
“You sound like your father.”
“No.”
Alessandro looked at Emma in Sophia’s arms.
“I don’t.”
Marco died before the ambulance reached the ruins.
The manual relay was buried beneath a stone angel in the burned garden.
Celeste opened the access panel.
Two key slots waited inside.
One required Sophia’s implant signal.
The other required Celeste’s phrase.
The countdown reached four minutes.
Hayes connected a portable reader behind Sophia’s ear.
The numbers transferred.
Celeste placed her hand on the second control.
“What is the phrase?” Sophia asked.
Celeste looked at Isabella.
Her daughter sat on the ground, wrists restrained, tears running silently down her face.
“The phrase Lorenzo chose,” Celeste said, “was the first sentence Isabella ever spoke.”
Isabella looked up.
Celeste entered the words.
Mama came back.
The system accepted them.
A final choice appeared.
PRESERVE.
RELEASE.
TRANSFER.
There was no destroy option.
“Transfer where?” Alessandro asked.
Celeste read the destination requirements.
“One secured legal authority and one independent public custodian.”
Cole gave the name of a federal prosecutor outside the archive’s compromised network.
Sophia selected a consortium of investigative journalists with protected systems, but restricted access to files involving victims.
The countdown stopped at eleven seconds.
TRANSFER INITIATED.
Vittorio laughed from the stretcher.
“You think you won?”
Alessandro turned.
Vittorio’s face was gray, but his eyes remained sharp.
“The archive contains your father’s crimes. Your accounts. Your judges. When it opens, the Moretti name ends.”
Alessandro looked at the transfer bar.
“Then it ends.”
Vittorio’s laughter stopped.
“You would surrender everything?”
“Everything built from this.”
Sophia held Emma closer.
For the first time that night, the child stopped crying.
The transfer reached ninety-eight percent.
Then the screen flashed red.
EXTERNAL INTERRUPTION.
A new user had entered the system.
May you like
The name appeared beneath the warning.
DANIEL CARTER.
