The interrogation room was a sterile box of white tile and buzzing fluorescent light, a stark contrast to the gothic shadows of the Roberts estate. Olivia sat with her hands folded on the metal table, her reflection in the two-way mirror looking like a ghost of the woman who had walked into that mansion only weeks ago.
"Miss Lane," the lead investigator said, leaning into her space. "We have the recordings. We have the data broadcast. But we don't have the man. Where is Emmanuel Roberts?"
Olivia didn't blink. She had played this scene a thousand times in her head. "I told you. He took the girl and disappeared into the tunnels before the floor sealed. I don't know where they lead."
"And your father? Dr. Arthur Lane has been missing for ten years, presumed dead, only to reappear as the architect of a global data leak, and then vanish again?" The investigator slammed a folder onto the table. "It's a bit convenient, don't you think?"
"Convenient isn't the word I'd use for watching my life's work explode," Olivia replied, her voice cold. "I'm a journalist. I did my job. I exposed the corruption. If you can't find the players, that's a failure of your department, not mine."
After six hours of circular questioning, they had no choice but to let her go. Her status as a "whistleblower" and the sheer volume of public support for her "bravery" made her too radioactive to detain without a charge.
She stepped out of the federal building into a swarm of camera flashes. The world was screaming for her story, but Olivia pushed through the crowd, her hand gripped tightly around the small, velvet-lined drawer she had managed to tuck into her jacket before the agents arrived.
She didn't go to her apartment. She knew it would be bugged, watched by both the government and whatever remained of the Vance family's mercenaries. Instead, she took three different subways and walked four miles to a locker at a bus station she hadn't used since college.
Inside the drawer was the handwritten letter. She sat on a plastic bench, the smell of diesel and old coffee surrounding her, and finally unfolded the paper.
Olivia,
By the time you read this, the world as you knew it is gone. I spent ten years in that basement, not just as a prisoner, but as a student of power. I learned that men like Emmanuel don't own the world because of their money, they own it because of the stories they tell.
The coordinates below aren't for a hiding spot. They are for a beginning. You have the truth, but the truth is a weapon that needs a steady hand. If you want to find the man who bled for you, and the father who lied for you, go to the place where the silence started.
45.4642° N, 9.1900° E
Olivia pulled out her phone, her fingers hovering over a map app. The coordinates led to Milan, Italy. Specifically, to a small, private chapel on the outskirts of the city, a place known for its "Silent Vows."
"The place where the silence started," she whispered.
She looked at the key to the Italian villa. Her father hadn't just given her an escape; he had given her a destination. But as she stood up to leave, her phone buzzed with an encrypted message from an unknown sender.
The sniper wasn't working for Julianna. Check the linguistic cipher again. Look for the 'Third Party.'
Olivia's blood ran cold. If the sniper wasn't a Vance mercenary, then there was someone else in the shadows, someone who had wanted both Emmanuel and Julianna dead.
She realized then that the Roberts Family Saga wasn't over. It had just moved to a much larger stage.
She walked toward the ticket counter, her heart drumming a new, steady rhythm. She had the key, she had the coordinates, and for the first time in her life, she had the power to write the ending.
"One way to Milan," she told the clerk, her voice clear. "As soon as possible."
As she turned away from the counter, she caught a glimpse of a man in a charcoal suit watching her from the far end of the terminal. He didn't move, he didn't speak, but he tapped a rhythmic pattern against his thigh.
Tap-tap. Tap.
It was the Roberts security code for "Guardian."
Emmanuel was alive. And he was already ahead of her.
Olivia is headed to Italy to uncover her father's final secret, but she's being followed by a guardian who might be working for her,or making sure she never reaches the chapel.