“The stranger standing between your father and grandfather.”
“I remember him now.”
He pointed toward the man.
“I saw him in one of the old security archives after your grandfather’s funeral.”
“Who was he?”
Marco looked toward Elena.
“Samuel Navarro.”
Elena stepped backward.
“No.”
“Your grandfather?” Marco asked.
She shook her head.
“My grandfather was named Samuel.”
The office fell completely silent.
“He died before I was born.”
“What did he do?”
“I don’t know. My mother never spoke about him.”
Marco turned the old photograph over.
On the back, beneath Isabella’s handwriting, faint original writing had almost completely disappeared.
He held the photograph beneath the desk lamp.
Four names.
Vittorio Moretti.
Samuel Navarro.
Elias Mercer.
Thomas Vale.
Elena stared at them.
“Four custodians.”
I looked at Marco.
“Find Mercer and Vale.”
“I’m already on it.”
The baby monitor on my desk crackled.
Then Nora started crying.
I moved immediately.
Whatever impossible mystery surrounded my father, Isabella, Luca, the bloodlines, hidden rooms, and secret archive, Nora’s cry cut through everything else.
For the first time that night, I understood the difference.
Some mysteries could wait.
My daughter couldn’t.
I reached the nursery before everyone else.
Nora stood holding tightly to the crib rail, tears running down her cheeks.
The moment she saw me, she lifted both arms.
“Da.”
I froze.
She had made sounds before.
Babbling.
Loose syllables.
But this felt different.
Or perhaps I simply needed it to feel different.
“Da.”
Every trace of anger disappeared.
I picked her up.
She buried her face against my neck.
Theo shifted beside her.
Miles kept sleeping.
Sophie sat cross-legged on the rug, carefully tying a ribbon around her damaged doll.
“You came fast,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Because Nora called you.”
“Yes.”
Sophie nodded thoughtfully.
“That’s what daddies do.”
I held Nora a little tighter.
Behind me, Elena had reached the doorway.
She watched us quietly.
Something in her expression softened.
Then Theo woke.
Within seconds, he had started fussing too.
I leaned down awkwardly while holding Nora with one arm.
Sophie stood.
“He wants his blanket.”
“How do you know?”
“He always kicks when he wants his blanket.”
“You’ve been paying close attention to my children.”
Sophie gave me a look suggesting the answer was obvious.
“I’m four.”
Apparently, that explained everything.
Elena laughed despite her exhaustion.
I pulled Theo’s blanket higher.
He immediately settled.
Miles made a small sound in his sleep.
For one brief minute, nothing else in the world existed except three babies breathing.
No syndicate. No archive. No people returning from the de:ad.
Only my children.
I looked toward Elena.
“You and Sophie are leaving tonight.”
Fear crossed her face.
“Leaving?”
“To a property nobody connected to the household network knows about.”
She immediately started to protest.
“It isn’t punishment.”
I glanced toward Sophie.
“It’s protection.”
Elena’s shoulders relaxed slightly.
“You’re coming too?”
“Yes.”
Marco entered the nursery.
“I’ve already chosen a location.”
“Not one of ours.”
His eyebrows rose.
“No?”
“No Moretti property. No syndicate safe house. No standard route.”
Elena understood immediately.
“If someone knows your protocols…”
“We stop following protocols.”
Marco nodded slowly.
“Where?”
I thought about the one place nobody inside my organization would expect me to choose.
A small farmhouse near Galena.
It had belonged to Isabella’s aunt.
After the woman passed away, Isabella had refused to sell it.
I had never understood why.
“Isabella’s farmhouse.”
Marco stared at me.
“Boss, if she’s involved in whatever this is—”
“She is.”
“Then they might know about it.”
“They probably do.”
“That isn’t reassuring.”
“But Isabella told me not to trust the clocks.”
Sophie looked up.
Everyone turned toward her.
I crouched beside her again.
“Sophie. When Isabella told you the clocks were lying, did she say anything else?”
Sophie twisted the ribbon around one finger.
“She said the house remembers people.”
“What else?”
“That sometimes safe places are places everybody has already found.”
Marco frowned.
“That makes no tactical sense.”
I looked at him.
