The document was a wedge, driving a sliver of doubt into Dante's certainty. He locked himself in his office, the official report from Elias a toxic presence on his desk. The manifest was real. The port authority's signature was confirmed. His father, Antonio Moretti, had been involved in selling illegal weapons.
His entire mission, the righteous vengeance that had fueled him for nineteen years, was suddenly seen in a new, grim light. Was his father's murder not the act of a greedy rival, but the bloody result of a deal gone wrong? Was he the son of a martyr or the heir to a criminal?
This uncertainty made him volatile, reckless. He pushed the team harder, his orders sharper, his patience non-existent. The easy partnership we had built in the library after the kiss was fractured by his inner turmoil. He retreated behind his walls; the cold, ruthless CEO re-emerged, but this time his coldness was fragile, a defense against a truth he couldn't bear.
"We need to pursue this," I argued one evening, finding him staring at the manifest as if he could will it away. "We need to understand your father's operation. Who were his partners? Who was he selling to? This isn't a distraction, Dante. This could be the real motive."
"My father was a good man!" he shouted, slamming his fist on the desk, the sound making me flinch. "He was betrayed by snakes like Valerius and Finch! This… this is a lie they made up to justify what they did!"
"Then help me prove it's a lie!" I shot back, refusing to back down. "Ignoring it won't make it disappear. The Curator gave us this weapon. If we don't understand it, he will use it against us."
Our argument was interrupted by Aria, who stood in the doorway, her face pale. "What's going on? What lie?"
There was no hiding it from her. We showed her the manifest. I watched her closely, expecting her to share her brother's blind denial. But Aria, who had known her father as a girl and not as an icon, simply looked at the document with deep, quiet sadness.
"He was different, in the last year," she said, her voice soft, like a distant memory. "He was stressed. Secretive. There were men who came to the house late at night, men who didn't look like his usual business partners. Mother was worried. They fought a lot."
Her words confirmed everything, quietly breaking down the perfect image Dante had held on to. He stared at his sister, his denial crumbling under her gentle, honest memory.
The Curator hadn't just attacked Dante's present; he had declared war on his past. And he was winning.
Later that night, unable to sleep, I returned to the manifest, my mind racing. The port authority's name was listed: Jacques Dubois. Dubois. The name was on my list of the Syndicate's other victims, the family from Marseille. His father had died in a supposed "accident" a year after the Moretti murders.
Following a hunch, I asked Nyx to run a search, not for Jacques, but for his family. We found a daughter, Colette Dubois. She had become a reclusive, anti-corporate journalist, living under an assumed name in Brussels.
The Curator thought he was giving us a poison pill. But he had also, unknowingly, given us a name. A potential ally. A loose thread from the past that, if we pulled it, might just unravel everything.