Chapter 7 - Blood at Saint OrisonCross fell backward against the console.
For half a second, everyone stared.
Then the chamber erupted.
Caterina fired twice at the nearest guards. Adrien tackled another man before he could aim at me. Marco grabbed a rifle from the floor and drove the remaining attackers behind the server racks.
Sofia pulled Vincent toward cover.
I dropped beside Dr. Bell as bullets struck the stone walls.
The upload continued.
18%.
Cross was still alive.
Blood spread across his white shirt, but he reached beneath his coat and pulled out a pistol.
He aimed at Caterina.
Adrien saw him.
“Mother!”
Caterina turned.
Cross fired.
The bullet struck her below the ribs.
Adrien shot Cross through the shoulder.
The deputy mayor collapsed beside the console, screaming.
I crawled toward Caterina.
Adrien reached her first.
He caught her before she fell and lowered her to the ground.
Her blood covered his hands.
“No,” he said.
The word sounded younger than him.
Caterina touched his face.
“I’m sorry.”
“Save your strength.”
“I should have come back.”
“Yes.”
He did not comfort her with a lie.
Tears filled her eyes.
“I thought fear was love.”
Adrien pressed both hands against her wound.
“Dr. Bell!”
The doctor crawled toward them.
Marco continued firing.
Sofia looked at the upload screen.
31%.
A red warning flashed.
CONNECTION INTERRUPTED.
Cross laughed from the floor.
“You need my access token.”
Vincent moved toward the console.
“It already transmitted enough.”
“Not enough to convict anyone.”
Cross held a small metal device.
“Without this, the network will delete the files before they reach the public server.”
Adrien looked at Marco.
“Take it.”
Marco tried to move, but two guards blocked him.
I saw Marcus lying near the entrance.
He had been ignored during the shooting. Blood soaked the bandage around his shoulder.
His eyes met mine.
Then he looked at Cross’s access token.
He began crawling toward it.
At first, I thought he intended to help Cross.
That was what Marcus always did: attach himself to the strongest person in the room.
But when Cross saw him, he raised the pistol.
“You useless animal.”
Marcus stopped.
Cross fired.
The bullet struck Marcus in the abdomen.
Marcus collapsed.
I should have felt nothing.
Instead, I remembered the first time he brought me flowers. The night he stayed beside me at the hospital when my foster father died. The mornings when he made coffee and kissed my forehead before the cruelty began.
Abusers do not arrive wearing their worst faces.
That is why people let them inside.
Marcus reached for the token again.
Cross tried to shoot, but his weapon clicked empty.
Marcus laughed through bloody teeth.
“Guess I was useful after all.”
He grabbed the token and threw it toward me.
I caught it.
Cross screamed.
“Lena, plug it into the console!” Vincent shouted.
I ran.
A guard stepped from behind the server rack and aimed at me.
Adrien fired over Caterina’s body.
The guard fell.
I inserted the token.
UPLOAD RESUMED.
44%.
The chamber lights flickered.
Cross dragged himself toward me.
“You don’t understand what you’re releasing.”
“I understand enough.”
“Banks will fail. Trials will be overturned. Witnesses will die.”
“People are already dying to protect your secrets.”
“You think truth is clean?”
“No.”
I looked at my parents, at Adrien holding the mother who had abandoned him, at Marcus bleeding on the stone floor.
“Nothing about this is clean.”
The upload reached 53%.
Cross lunged.
His hand closed around my ankle.
I kicked him away.
He pulled a knife.
Before he could rise, Marcus grabbed him from behind.
Cross drove the knife into Marcus’s chest.
Marcus gasped.
Still, he held on.
“Finish it,” he told me.
Cross stabbed him again.
Marcus’s eyes found mine.
“I’m sorry.”
It was not enough.
No apology could return the years he had taken from me or erase the fear he had placed inside my body.
But as he used his final strength to hold Cross away from me, I nodded once.
Not forgiveness.
Recognition.
He saw it.
Then his body went still.
Adrien pulled Cross away and struck him hard enough to break his jaw.
“Stop,” I said.
Adrien turned.
Cross lay helpless beneath him.
“Don’t kill him.”
“He ordered your death.”
“I want him alive when the city learns what he did.”
Adrien’s breathing slowed.
He stood.
Marco secured Cross’s wrists.
The last guard surrendered.
Dr. Bell shook his head over Caterina’s wound.
“She needs surgery now.”
“There’s a private clinic ten minutes away,” Marco said.
Adrien lifted his mother.
She groaned.
The upload reached 71%.
Vincent studied the screen.
“The external connection is failing again.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Cross’s network is blocking the transmission.”
Crane’s voice came from the entrance.
“Then we use the police emergency system.”
He entered with a team of officers.
Sofia raised her weapon.
Crane stopped.
“I brought men I trust.”
“You said that before,” she replied.
He looked at Vincent.
The two men stared at each other.
“You’re alive,” Crane said.
“Unfortunately for you.”
Crane removed his badge and placed it on the console.
“Commissioner access can force the upload through city servers.”
Sofia narrowed her eyes.
“It could also redirect the files.”
Crane looked at her.
“I cannot undo what happened. But I can give Lena the truth.”
He inserted his badge.
UPLOAD ROUTED THROUGH EMERGENCY NETWORK.
89%.
Phones began ringing across the chamber.
Marco checked his.
“News stations are receiving files.”
Crane’s phone lit up with calls from city officials.
Cross began laughing again.
“You think you won?”
No one answered.
He looked at Adrien.
“Ask your mother who killed Vittorio.”
Adrien went still.
Caterina’s face changed.
Cross smiled through blood.
“Tell him.”
Adrien looked down at her.
“Was it you?”
She closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
Silence.
“Why?”
“Because he discovered Lena was alive.”
My blood ran cold.
Caterina looked at me.
“Vittorio did not want to kill you.”
“Then what did he want?”
“He wanted to name you as his heir.”
Adrien stared at her.
Cross laughed.
“She still hasn’t told you the best part.”
Caterina began to cry.
Adrien’s voice became quiet.
“What part?”
She looked at me.
“Vittorio believed you were his daughter.”
My father stood abruptly.
“That is a lie.”
Caterina shook her head.
“No, Vincent. It is what Sofia told him.”
Everyone turned toward my mother.
Sofia’s face went white.
The upload reached 100%.
Then the console displayed one final hidden file.
PATERNITY RECORD: LENA MARIN.
Access granted.
May you like
The result appeared on the screen.
Biological father: Vittorio Viscari.
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