Chapter 10 - Sophia’s Last Secret
Sophia touched the scar behind her ear.
Vittorio watched her with the satisfaction of a man opening a safe.
“Lorenzo arranged the procedure when you were seven,” he said. “Your mother was told doctors were removing a benign growth.”
“You are lying.”
“Your father needed a place no enemy would search. A child who did not carry his name.”
Alessandro stepped between Vittorio and Sophia.
“If there were a device inside her body, medical scans would have found it.”
“Not the device itself. Only a ceramic capsule no larger than a grain of rice.”
“Then it cannot hold the entire archive.”
“It holds the encryption seed.”
The key to unlock everything.
Emma whimpered.
Sophia’s attention returned to her daughter.
“Let her go.”
Vittorio nodded toward Marco.
Marco released Emma’s arm.
The child ran.
Sophia dropped to her knees and caught her.
For one brief moment, everyone watched mother and daughter hold each other.
Then Alessandro moved.
He struck Marco’s gun hand and drove him into the loading rail.
Cole’s officers entered through the upper windows and side doors.
Vittorio’s men fired first.
Glass shattered.
Alessandro pulled Sophia and Emma behind a concrete barrier.
Isabella ran toward the river exit.
Marco recovered his weapon.
Before he could fire, Vittorio shot him in the chest.
Marco fell against the rail.
Surprise crossed his face.
“You said we were partners,” he gasped.
Vittorio looked down at him.
“You were an employee.”
The same cruelty Marco had once accused the Morettis of now ended his usefulness.
Cole’s officers returned fire.
Vittorio disappeared through the loading door with Isabella.
By the time the terminal was secured, a boat was moving north through the darkness.
Marco remained alive.
Barely.
He looked at Alessandro as blood spread across his shirt.
“Saint Agnes,” he whispered.
“What is there?”
“The beginning.”
“Where is the archive?”
Marco smiled faintly.
“Everywhere.”
He lost consciousness.
At the estate, Hayes examined the scar behind Sophia’s ear with a portable scanner.
A small object appeared beneath the skin.
Sophia sat absolutely still.
Emma slept in Lucia’s bed after refusing to release her mother for nearly an hour.
“Can it be removed safely?” Alessandro asked.
“Yes,” Hayes said. “But I want a neurosurgeon.”
“No hospitals connected to Romano money.”
“I know one in Boston.”
“How long?”
“Several hours to arrange transport.”
Sophia looked at the scan.
“Can it track me?”
“Possibly.”
Alessandro ordered the estate’s electronic shielding system activated. Phones lost signal. External networks disconnected.
The house became an island.
Lucia entered.
Sophia stood immediately.
“Saint Agnes,” she said.
Lucia stopped.
Alessandro watched his mother’s face.
“What happened there?”
Lucia sat near the cold fireplace.
“Saint Agnes was a private maternity clinic.”
Isabella’s mother, Celeste Romano, had been treated there after a breakdown. Officially, the clinic burned due to faulty wiring.
Unofficially, Lorenzo’s archive had been stored beneath it.
“Celeste discovered what Vittorio and Lorenzo were doing,” Lucia said. “She threatened to take Isabella and go to the authorities.”
“What did you do?” Sophia asked.
“I helped her.”
Isabella had accused Lucia of destroying her mother.
Lucia claimed the opposite.
She arranged money, false passports, and a vehicle.
On the night Celeste planned to escape, the clinic burned.
Twelve people died.
Celeste’s body was identified through jewelry and dental records.
“But you don’t believe she died,” Alessandro said.
“I found the car untouched two miles away. The passports were gone.”
“Then she escaped.”
“Or Vittorio took her.”
Sophia touched her scar.
“How does this connect to me?”
“Your mother, Evelyn, worked at Saint Agnes as a translator. She helped Lorenzo move the encryption key before the fire.”
“By putting it in a child?”
Lucia’s shame answered before she spoke.
“She believed it was temporary.”
“You knew?”
“Not until years later.”
Sophia turned away.
Every adult around her had participated in choices made over children’s bodies, futures, and names.
Daniel was the only father she trusted.
Even he had hidden the truth.
Alessandro opened Lorenzo’s sealed envelope from the mausoleum.
He had delayed reading it because every message from his father seemed to create another wound.
Inside was a handwritten letter.
Alessandro—
If Sophia reaches you, the archive has already begun killing again.
Do not attempt to open the implant directly. The encryption seed is only half the key. The second half was given to Celeste Romano.
She is alive.
Find her before Vittorio does.
Beneath the letter was a photograph.
Celeste stood beside a motel sign.
The picture had been taken eighteen months earlier.
On the back was an address in Maine.
Cole checked the property records.
The motel had been demolished six months ago, but utility bills led to a nearby cabin owned under the name Claire Ross.
Alessandro prepared to leave before dawn.
Sophia stood in the entry hall wearing a borrowed coat.
“You are not coming.”
“The key is inside my head.”
“That is why you are staying.”
“Celeste may speak only to me.”
“She has never met you.”
“She helped my mother.”
Alessandro looked toward the stairs where Emma slept.
“You just got her back.”
“And I intend to make certain no one takes her again.”
“She needs you here.”
“She needs this to end.”
They stared at each other.
He saw no servant now.
No hidden heir.
Only a woman who had survived grief, humiliation, and fear without surrendering her child.
“You stay beside me,” he said.
“That sounds like an order.”
“It is a request.”
Her expression softened slightly.
“Then ask properly.”
“Sophia, come with me. Stay beside me.”
“Yes.”
They left Emma with Lucia and ten trusted guards.
The drive to Maine took six hours.
Snow remained beneath the trees despite the late spring sun.
The cabin stood at the edge of a frozen lake.
No smoke rose from the chimney.
The front door was unlocked.
Inside, a table had been set for three people.
Fresh coffee steamed in the cups.
A woman sat beside the window with silver hair falling over one shoulder.
Her face resembled Isabella’s.
But older.
Sadder.
Celeste Romano looked at Sophia’s scar.
Then she looked at Alessandro.
“You are nine years late,” she said.
Alessandro closed the door.
“Vittorio is searching for you.”
“He has been searching for twenty-five years.”
“Can you unlock the archive?”
Celeste lifted her coffee.
“Yes.”
Sophia stepped closer.
“Then help us destroy it.”
Celeste’s eyes filled with something that resembled pity.
“The archive cannot be destroyed.”
“Why?”
“Because your father attached it to a dead-man protocol.”
“What happens if we try?”
May you like
Celeste looked toward the silent lake.
“Every file is released to the public.”
