Luca turned slowly toward Matteo.
Maya followed his gaze.
Matteo’s shirt had fallen open at the collar. On his chest, burned into the skin like a brand, was a black circle crossed by a silver line.
Elena made a sound of horror.
“What?” Maya demanded.
Luca’s voice was low. “The mark of the Black Table.”
Maya looked at Matteo’s young face. “Your brother works for them?”
Luca said nothing.
Then Matteo’s eyes opened.
He smiled through blood.
“Not for them,” he whispered. “With them.”
Luca’s gun rose.
Matteo laughed weakly. “You still don’t understand. You think they want the ledger. You think they want the girl.”
Elena stepped forward. “What do they want?”
Matteo’s smile widened.
“They want Luca to open the door.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“What door?” Maya asked.
Matteo looked at her, and for a moment his expression changed. Not pity. Not kindness. Recognition.
“The one your mother built inside you.”
Elena went rigid.
Luca turned to her. “Elena.”
Maya backed away from both of them. “What is he talking about?”
Matteo coughed, laughing again. “She never told you? Of course she didn’t. Saint Elena, always hiding sins inside sacrifices.”
Elena’s voice was barely audible. “Be quiet.”
But Matteo’s eyes shone.
“The data was not hidden in your hospital record, Maya. That was the fairy tale. The bedtime version. The key is in you. Not on paper. Not in a scan. In your blood.”
Maya felt the room go distant.
Elena whispered, “I had no choice.”
Luca stared at her as if he had never seen her before.
“You said imaging files,” he said.
“I lied.”
“To me?”
“To everyone.”
Maya’s hands trembled. “What did you do?”
Elena took one step toward her. “I made sure they could never take the truth without taking you alive.”
Maya shook her head. “That is not an answer.”
Matteo grinned. “She made you compatible.”
“With what?” Maya demanded.
No one answered fast enough.
Then Luca’s penthouse security system came alive. Screens lowered from the ceiling, flickering on one by one.
A face appeared across all of them.
A man in his fifties, silver at the temples, handsome in a way that felt cruel. His eyes were dark, amused, and terribly familiar.
Maya knew those eyes.
She had seen them in the mirror every morning of her life.
“Good evening,” Adrian Vale said.