Alessia Romano refused to trade herself for another hostage. She and Dante Vitale returned to a cliffside Sicilian estate during a funeral storm 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 Alessia Romano's life from childhood to the previous night. Someone had planned every loss with patient precision. At the center, a line connected her to Dante Vitale, then continued toward a sealed record neither of them had seen.
Dante Vitale reached it first. The evidence proved the truth neither of them was ready to trust: Dante paid the debt to keep Alessia alive after her own family ordered her execution. It also showed why he had been tied to the conspiracy long before he met Alessia Romano.
Footsteps filled the corridor. Dante Vitale reached for his weapon, but Alessia Romano 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 Alessia Romano'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 Dante Vitale, or bury it and become the woman who betrays him.”
Alessia Romano took Dante Vitale's hand instead.
The stranger smiled and pressed a remote. Behind them, the archive began counting down from ten.