Chapter 7 - What Lucia HidElias did not turn around.
The darkness inside the Mercer house was complete except for moonlight leaking through the kitchen windows.
The small black capsule rested in his palm.
Behind him, Claudia spoke again.
“Put it on the table.”
He heard no fear in her voice.
That frightened him.
The Claudia he knew disliked darkness, violence, disorder.
This woman sounded perfectly comfortable with all three.
“How did you get in?”
“You gave me a key.”
“I changed the locks.”
She laughed softly.
“Elias, your company owns the security system.”
His stomach tightened.
Mercer Shield.
He should have realized.
“Were you ever actually interested in me?”
“That depends on what you mean by interested.”
He closed his fingers around the capsule.
“You destroyed my marriage.”
“No.”
Her voice sharpened.
“You destroyed your marriage. I merely made selfishness feel intelligent.”
The words landed with humiliating accuracy.
Elias slowly turned.
He could make out her silhouette near the doorway.
“Why Serena?”
“Because she was the lock.”
“And this is the key?”
“Part of one.”
“What's on it?”
“You don't need to know.”
“I disagree.”
He took one step backward.
Claudia moved.
He saw a weapon in her hand.
Not pointed at him yet.
“Don't.”
“Are you going to shoot me?”
“I'd rather not.”
“Because you love me?”
“Don't embarrass yourself.”
Elias almost laughed.
Months of dinners.
Late-night conversations.
The first kiss he had justified by telling himself his marriage was already dead.
None of it had been real.
He deserved the humiliation.
Serena had not deserved the consequences.
“Did you order the attack at her hotel?”
Claudia said nothing.
“That was you.”
“We needed to move her somewhere controlled.”
“By kidnapping her.”
“We wouldn't have harmed her.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No.”
He shifted toward the island.
Claudia raised the gun.
“Stop.”
He stopped.
“Put the capsule down.”
Instead, Elias threw it.
Not toward her.
Toward the dark living room.
Claudia turned instinctively.
Elias moved.
He hit the kitchen alarm under the counter.
A piercing siren exploded through the house.
Exterior lights activated.
Claudia cursed.
Elias ran.
A shot cracked.
Glass shattered beside him.
He threw himself through the side door and into the garden.
Security vehicles were already moving from the gatehouse.
Behind him, Claudia vanished through another exit.
By the time guards entered the house, she was gone.
The capsule was gone too.
Or so Elias let them believe.
In the upstairs bathroom twenty minutes later, he removed his watch.
The real capsule was hidden beneath the strap.
He had thrown a black cuff-link into the living room.
For once, deception had been useful.
His first call was to Serena.
The number did not connect.
His second call was to Damiano's emergency line.
On the jet, Damiano listened in silence.
Serena sat opposite him, still holding the photograph of her parents' wedding.
When the call ended, she asked, “What happened?”
“Claudia went to the house.”
Elias's voice came through the cabin speakers.
“She wanted the ring.”
Serena's fingers tightened.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Did she get it?”
“The ring, yes.”
Damiano cursed.
“But not what was inside.”
Silence.
Elias continued.
“I have the capsule.”
Serena stood.
“You opened the ring?”
“Accidentally.”
“What does the capsule look like?”
“Black. Smaller than my thumbnail.”
Father Matteo leaned forward.
“Do not connect it to anything.”
Elias heard the unfamiliar voice.
“Who is that?”
“Someone who knows what it might contain,” Serena said.
“Great. My week keeps improving.”
Despite everything, she almost smiled.
“Where are you?”
“Home.”
“Leave.”
“Already leaving.”
Damiano took over.
“Mercer, go to your headquarters.”
“My father may control people there.”
“He controls people everywhere. At least your headquarters has layers of surveillance.”
Elias hesitated.
Then, “Serena.”
“Yes?”
“I am sorry.”
She closed her eyes.
Not now.
“Stay alive, Elias.”
The line ended.
The jet landed in Genoa near sunset.
Vittorio's residence overlooked the Ligurian coast from a cliff covered in olive trees.
Serena had visited as a teenager.
She remembered summers.
Long dinners.
Her grandfather pretending to dislike music while secretly humming opera when he thought nobody listened.
Now the house was silent.
His body rested in a private chapel.
Serena entered alone.
Damiano did not follow.
For that she was grateful.
Vittorio looked smaller than she remembered.
Death had removed the power from his face.
Serena stood beside the coffin for several minutes.
“I don't know whether to hate you.”
Her voice trembled.
“You lied about everything.”
She placed one hand against the wood.
“You told me my mother died giving birth to me. You told me my father abandoned us. You let me believe our family moved to America because you wanted peace.”
Tears finally came.
“And then you let me marry into the family of a man you didn't trust.”
She wiped them away angrily.
“What were you trying to do?”
No answer.
Of course.
That was death's final cruelty.
The dead left everyone else to interpret their mistakes.
Serena looked at his face.
Then noticed his left hand.
The family ring he always wore was missing.
She stepped closer.
Vittorio never removed that ring.
Ever.
“Damiano!”
He entered immediately.
“What?”
“His ring.”
Damiano looked at the hand.
His face darkened.
“Where is it?”
“I don't know.”
“Who prepared the body?”
“Emil Voss's team.”
Serena stared at him.
“The doctor who disappeared.”
“Yes.”
She looked back at her grandfather.
“Was there something inside his ring too?”
Damiano did not answer.
Serena laughed bitterly.
“You don't know.”
“No.”
Finally, something he didn't know.
They searched Vittorio's private study.
Most files had been cleared.
The wall safe was empty.
But Serena noticed a painting hanging slightly crooked.
Behind it was not a safe.
It was a handwritten note taped directly to the wall.
One sentence.
The first key belongs to Lucia. The second belongs to me. The third was given to the enemy.
Serena read it aloud.
Damiano's expression changed.
“Three keys.”
“The ring was the second.”
“And Lucia's ring held the first.”
“The capsule Elias has.”
“Yes.”
Serena touched the final words.
The third was given to the enemy.
“Who?”
Damiano shook his head.
“We need all three.”
“To open what?”
Matteo entered behind them.
“The Continuity Archive.”
Serena looked at him.
“You know?”
“Only the stories.”
“I am tired of stories.”
“The archive requires three independent keys. Lucia carried one. Vittorio kept one. Alexander gave the third to someone outside the family.”
“Why?”
“So no Moretti or Laurent could open it alone.”
Serena turned to Damiano.
“Who was Alexander's enemy?”
Damiano thought.
“Jonathan Mercer.”
Serena froze.
The answer was too obvious.
Perhaps that made it right.
“Jonathan has the third key.”
“Possibly.”
“And Vittorio's ring was stolen by Emil Voss.”
“Yes.”
“Meaning Claudia may now have the second.”
Damiano nodded.
“And Elias has the first.”
Serena walked toward the window.
Three keys.
Three sides.
Mercer.
Voss.
Herself.
The architecture of the situation began to emerge.
“They need us cooperating.”
Damiano frowned.
“What?”
“Whoever designed this.”
She turned.
“If no one faction has all three keys, then opening the archive requires either cooperation or theft.”
Matteo nodded slowly.
“Alexander wanted mutual restraint.”
“But everyone spent thirty years trying to kill each other instead.”
“Human nature,” Matteo said.
Serena shook her head.
“No. Manipulation.”
They looked at her.
“What if Meridian wants the archive opened?”
Damiano's eyes narrowed.
“Why would they?”
“To find out what evidence Lucia collected.”
“They could destroy it.”
“Or find out who else was recorded.”
Serena looked at the note.
“What if this entire crisis was designed to force the three keys into the open?”
Silence.
Damiano's phone rang.
Alessia.
He answered.
His expression became stone.
“When?”
He listened.
“Lock down the property.”
Serena stepped closer.
“What?”
Damiano ended the call.
“Someone just entered Mercer Group headquarters.”
“Claudia?”
“No.”
“Jonathan?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
He looked at Serena.
“Your mother.”
Serena stared.
For a second she thought she had misheard him.
“My mother is dead.”
Damiano's voice lowered.
“That is what we believed.”
He turned the phone screen toward her.
A live security image showed a woman walking through Mercer Group's lobby.
She was older than Lucia had been in the photographs.
Her dark hair was streaked with gray.
But the eyes were unmistakable.
Serena's eyes.
The woman stopped beneath a camera.
Looked directly into it.
May you like
And held up a handwritten sign.
SERENA, DO NOT TRUST DAMIANO.
