Camila DeLuca refused to trade herself for another hostage. She and Nico Santoro returned to a storm-locked villa on the Amalfi coast before midnight, using the key from the ambush to enter the archive their enemy had tried to keep buried.
Inside were recordings, legal files, and a wall tracking Camila DeLuca's life from childhood to the previous night. Someone had planned every loss with patient precision. At the center, a line connected her to Nico Santoro, then continued toward a sealed record neither of them had seen.
Nico Santoro reached it first. The evidence proved the truth neither of them was ready to trust: Nico was the anonymous witness who saved Camila from an assassination on her wedding day. It also showed why he had been tied to the conspiracy long before he met Camila DeLuca.
Footsteps filled the corridor. Nico Santoro reached for his weapon, but Camila DeLuca stopped him. Running had brought her here. This time she would make the person hunting them speak.
The archive door opened. The intruder removed a hood, and Camila DeLuca's breath caught. The face belonged to someone whose funeral she had attended—and the hostage video had been playing from an empty room.
“You finally found the truth,” the stranger said. “Now choose: expose it and destroy Nico Santoro, or bury it and become the woman who betrays him.”
Camila DeLuca took Nico Santoro's hand instead.
The stranger smiled and pressed a remote. Behind them, the archive began counting down from ten.