The archive was hidden beneath a courthouse guarded by federal agents and Mafia soldiers, protected by a lock that required two blood samples and a spoken family name. Ava Cross expected the door to reject her. It opened before Luca Vieri finished the warning.
Inside were recordings, legal files, and a wall of photographs tracking her life from childhood to the previous night. Someone had planned every betrayal with patient precision. At the center of the wall, a red thread connected Ava Cross to Luca Vieri, then continued toward a sealed photograph neither of them had seen.
He reached it first. The image showed their parents standing together years before either family claimed to have met. On the back, one sentence changed the meaning of every promise between them: Luca has been feeding Ava evidence because her own chief prosecutor runs the rival syndicate.
Footsteps filled the corridor. Luca Vieri reached for his weapon, but Ava Cross 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 Ava Cross's breath caught. The face belonged to someone whose funeral she had attended.
“You finally found the truth,” the stranger said. “Now choose which one of you gets to survive it.”