Sofia Bell refused to trade herself for another hostage. She and Enzo Moretti returned to a closed Brooklyn restaurant surrounded by black cars 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 Sofia Bell's life from childhood to the previous night. Someone had planned every loss with patient precision. At the center, a line connected her to Enzo Moretti, then continued toward a sealed record neither of them had seen.
Enzo Moretti reached it first. The evidence proved the truth neither of them was ready to trust: Sofia, not Enzo, owns the ledger capable of destroying every crime family in New York. It also showed why he had been tied to the conspiracy long before he met Sofia Bell.
Footsteps filled the corridor. Enzo Moretti reached for his weapon, but Sofia Bell 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 Sofia Bell'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 Enzo Moretti, or bury it and become the woman who betrays him.”
Sofia Bell took Enzo Moretti's hand instead.
The stranger smiled and pressed a remote. Behind them, the archive began counting down from ten.