A Little Girl Pointed Toward My Upstairs Office—Then the Door Opened and My Fiancée Went Pale.

In an abandoned safehouse outside Zurich, the truth finally laid itself bare under the harsh light of a single halogen bulb.

Lucien von Klaus, stripped of his pride and bleeding from his lip, sat tied to a steel chair. On the metal table beside him lay the decrypted files extracted from his private data key.

"Clara’s father... is Archon Valerius Vance," Klaus croaked, his breathing ragged. "The oldest dynasty in the European shadows. For two hundred years, the Council has controlled politicians, central banks, and shipping routes through blood pacts."

"Why did Clara leave?" Damien demanded, leaning over the table, his knuckles white against the metal.

"Because the Archon had betrothed her to my son to consolidate power," Klaus confessed, shivering in the cold damp air. "She refused. She stole the Council's biometric encryption codes—the master keys to every covert asset—and fled across the Atlantic under a forged identity. She thought she could disappear in your world."

"And Selene Hart?" Marco asked from the corner.

"The Hart family was drowning in debt from bad investments in our dummy funds," Klaus muttered. "When we tracked Clara to Damien Moretti's side, we approached Selene. We promised her family's debt would be erased, and the Moretti empire would be hers once Clara was out of the picture. Selene was greedy and stupid enough to believe us. But Clara knew we would eventually find her. That's why she hid the encryption codes."

Damien stepped forward, his eyes boring into Klaus's soul. "Where did she hide them?"

Klaus looked up, a terrified smile stretching across his cracked lips. "She didn't hide them in a computer or a safe, Damien. She synthesized the encryption code into her own DNA... and passed it directly to her daughter. Lily’s blood contains the biometric sequence. Without Lily, the Sovereign Council cannot access over eighty billion dollars in frozen reserves."

Damien’s heart hammered against his ribs like a war drum.

Every piece of the puzzle suddenly locked into place. The locket. The break-ins. The assassination attempt. They didn't want Lily dead—they wanted her captured, her blood drawn, her life drained to unlock their stolen empire.

Suddenly, Damien’s encrypted phone buzzed in his pocket. It was an urgent call from Eva at the Lake Como sanctuary.

Damien snatched the phone, pressing it to his ear. "Eva. Report."

"Damien..." Eva's voice trembled, barely a whisper over the line. "Lily is safe, but... something strange is happening. She woke up twenty minutes ago in a trance. She took a box of charcoal from her art kit and began drawing on the bedroom wall."

"Drawing what, Eva?" Damien asked, a dread creeping up his spine.

"A circle with a black sun... and five Latin names beneath it," Eva whispered. "Names she has never heard in her life. And she keeps repeating one sentence over and over."