Chapter 13 - The Archive Beneath the BankThe monitor went silent.
For a moment, no one moved. Then Matteo ripped the device from the table and threw it against the wall. Plastic shattered. The blue light disappeared.
“He’s inside the system,” Elena said.
“He’s inside every system,” Matteo replied.
Liana looked at the file about her father. “My mother created the mark?”
“Dante wants you confused,” Sofia said. “Confusion makes people easier to control.”
“You heard the message.”
“I heard him lie.”
“How do you know?”
Sofia’s eyes filled with exhaustion. “Because your mother was not a researcher. She was a nurse. Elias loved her, but he never gave her access to the program.”
Matteo opened a map on the kitchen table. “The bank is three blocks from here. We move now.”
“Nico is still sick,” Elena said.
“The counteragent may be there.”
Liana picked up Nora. The baby was awake and watching her with calm, curious eyes.
“Then we go.”
The old Varric bank had been closed for years, but its side entrance opened with the brass key marked 92. Beyond it, a staircase descended beneath the city.
The archive was not a room. It was an entire underground floor.
Rows of metal cabinets filled the darkness. Every drawer carried a number. Some held birth certificates. Some held photographs. Some held only small objects: bracelets, blankets, toys, and locks of baby hair.
Liana walked between them with Nora in her arms, feeling the weight of ninety-two stolen lives.
Mara moved beside her. “That is where they kept my name.”
She pointed to a cabinet marked 17.
Mrs. Bell opened it. Inside was a file bearing Mara’s real name and a photograph of her mother.
Mara began to cry.
Sofia hugged her. “We will find your family.”
“What if they are dead?”
“Then we will make sure you know they loved you.”
At the far end, Matteo found a locked glass cabinet. Inside lay a blue ampoule.
Elena broke the glass and retrieved it. She held it beneath a portable scanner.
“This is the counteragent,” she said. “One dose only.”
“For Nico,” Matteo said.
“Nora may need it too.”
Liana looked at both babies.
“Can you divide it?”
“Not safely.”
Matteo stepped toward the cabinet. “Give it to Nico.”
“He is your son,” Liana said.
“Nora has been exposed longer. Her body may not survive the full dose.”
“Then give it to Nora.”
“Liana.”
“She is my daughter.”
They stood face to face between the cabinets.
Elena’s expression hardened. “Stop arguing like the children are property. There may be another option.”
She examined the ampoule again. “The drug is concentrated. If I dilute it with the stabilizer in my kit, I can create two partial doses.”
“Will they work?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do it,” Liana and Matteo said together.
Elena smiled without humor. “At least you agree on something.”
While Elena prepared the doses, Sofia searched the archive. She found a wall of photographs showing hospital staff, security officers, and members of the Varric family.
At the center was a picture of Dante standing beside a woman in a gray coat.
Liana recognized her.
“That is the woman who signed Nora’s death certificate,” she said.
Sofia touched the photograph. “Dr. Clara Wynn. Kessler’s partner.”
Matteo looked over. “Where is Kessler?”
“At the hospital,” Dante said.
The voice came from the darkness.
Men stepped out from behind the cabinets. Their weapons were raised. Dante walked between them, wearing the same dark coat as before.
Matteo pushed Liana behind him.
“You always walk into rooms as if you own them,” Dante said.
“You always hide behind men you pay.”
“They are loyal.”
“They are afraid.”
“Fear is more reliable than love.”
Sofia emerged from the row of cabinets. “You never understood love.”
Dante’s face tightened. “You chose him.”
“I chose the man I believed he could become.”
“And he became a monster.”
Matteo’s gaze did not leave Dante. “You are the one who built the cage.”
Dante snapped his fingers.
One of the men seized Liana.
Nora began crying. Nico answered from Elena’s arms.
The sound filled the archive.
Liana started singing.
Dante’s expression changed as both babies quieted. The guards looked uncertain. Even the air seemed to pause.
Matteo used that second. He struck the nearest guard, took his weapon, and fired into the ceiling sprinklers. Water burst across the archive. Lights flickered. Sofia pulled Mara behind a cabinet. Elena shielded the babies.
The room erupted.
Liana ducked beneath a desk while Matteo fought his way toward Dante. Their bodies crashed into a cabinet, sending files across the floor.
Dante pulled a knife. Matteo blocked the blade, but it cut through his palm.
“You always were slower,” Dante whispered.
“You always talked too much.”
Matteo drove his forehead into Dante’s nose.
Dante staggered. Matteo pinned him against the cabinet.
“Where is the hospital?”
“Burning.”
“What?”
“Kessler is destroying the records.”
Dante smiled through blood. “And the children are in the building.”
Matteo looked toward Elena.
The choice was immediate.
He released Dante.
“Run,” he ordered Liana.
“Where?”
“St. Agnes.”
“And you?”
“I’m bringing your father’s sins into the light.”
Dante grabbed Matteo from behind.
Liana saw the knife before Matteo did.
She picked up the brass key and drove it into Dante’s wrist.
He screamed. Matteo twisted free and knocked him unconscious.
Liana stared at the key in her hand.
“My father would have wanted that,” she said.
Matteo gave her a brief, almost disbelieving look.
“Your father would have been proud.”
May you like
Sirens sounded above them.
The hospital was burning.
