The words filled the air of the war room, a dark verdict. The Antonio Moretti Gambit.
Dante's hand, still resting on mine on the book, froze. He didn't just let go; he jerked it back as if the ledger had burned him. He staggered back, his face showing pale, violent denial.
"No," he whispered, the word raw and broken. He shook his head, eyes wide, staring at the book as if it were a snake. "No. It's a lie. It's more of Finch's poison. A forgery. He planted it!"
"Dante," I said, my voice soft yet firm, trying to ground him as he unraveled. "This is Jacques Dubois's handwriting. Marchand confirmed it. This… this is the truth."
"The truth?" he roared, losing control, his voice echoing with the unbridled fury of a man whose entire life felt like a sham. "The truth is my father was murdered! He was executed in his own home! He was a victim! He wasn't a 'player' in a 'gambit'!"
He was not lashing out at me, but at the words, at the sacrilege they represented. His whole identity, his nineteen-year quest for revenge, rested on the belief that his father was a martyr. This ledger didn't just hint at a crack; it implied the entire foundation was a lie.
"Dante, please," Aria whispered, her face pale, tears filling her eyes. "We have to know. We need to read it."
He looked at his sister, his anger battling the pain in his eyes. He didn't speak, but his silence, his clenched jaw, was a desperate surrender.
My hands trembled. I glanced at the team—Nyx, Elias, and Aria—all watching with bated breath. This was the secret that had taken dozens of lives, that had buried Mateo Vargas alive, that had kept Elara and Marchand captive for two decades.
I took a deep breath and started to read.
My voice was the only sound, steady against the weight of the past. The first page wasn't a confession; it was a record.
"I write this," I read, Dubois's elegant script blurring through my unshed tears, "because Antonio Moretti is a good man, and he is about to make a very foolish, very brave choice. He has been targeted by the Ouroboros, the Syndicate. They came to him, as they approach all men of power, and demanded he join them. He refused."
Dante, who had been pacing like a caged animal, stopped.
"They have begun the attack," I continued, my voice gaining strength. "The financial attacks, the sabotage. Antonio knows he cannot fight them alone. He has a plan. A gambit. He intends to wage his own shadow war."
I looked up at Dante, eyes wide with a shocking realization. "The manifest," I whispered. "The arms deal. It was real."
Dante looked as if he might be sick.
"Keep reading," Elias urged, his voice grim.
I read on, my voice telling the secret history of a man we had all misunderstood. Antonio Moretti, realizing he was being cornered, decided to set a trap. He planned a single, illegal arms shipment, using the Syndicate's own buyers—the very criminals he was supposed to work with. He aimed to create a paper trail, this manifest, and give it to Jacques Dubois. The plan was to let the deal go through, then later, he would "discover" the corruption and leak the manifest himself, using his political ties to expose the entire network, revealing the Syndicate's illegal arms trade to the world.
"It is a brilliant, reckless plan," I read, my voice thick with emotion. "He is using himself as bait. He believes his inner circle is clean. He believes Marco Valerius is his most loyal partner. I have warned him he is wrong. I have told him Valerius is a snake. But Antonio is proud. He will not listen. He calls it a 'necessary risk' to protect his family, his legacy."
The room was completely silent. The manifest the Curator sent us wasn't a deceit to damage Antonio. It was the truth of his father's failed plan. Antonio Moretti hadn't been a criminal. He had been a vigilante, a flawed man trying to fight a secret war who had been betrayed from within. He hadn't just been murdered; he had been outplayed.
Dante sank into the chair at the head of the table, his head in his hands. The sound he made was not a word, but a low, aching groan of pain so deep it had no name. He wasn't the son of a perfect martyr. He was the son of a complicated, proud, and tragic man who made one fatal mistake: he trusted the wrong friend.
"He wasn't a victim," I whispered, finally understanding. "He was a soldier. And this..." I placed my hand on the ledger. "This was his weapon."
"Jacques Dubois started this ledger the day after Antonio confided in him," Elias said softly, piecing it together. "He knew the gambit would fail. This book… this was his backup plan. His life's work. To finish the war his friend had started."
Dante slowly raised his head. The wild, shattered grief in his eyes faded. In its place was a new, chilling clarity. The doubt that had gnawed at him, the poison of the manifest, was gone. The truth, with all its tragic complexity, had liberated him. His quest was no longer just for revenge.
It was for inheritance.
He was his father's son, and the war was not over.
"Elias," Dante said, his voice a steady rumble of a reinforced foundation. "I want a full threat analysis on every name in this book. Nyx, I want a digital footprint for every corporation, every account. We are going to systematically, piece by piece, dismantle the Ouroboros. We are going to finish what my father started."
"Boss," Nyx said, her fingers already racing across her keyboard, her eyes wide with shock. "You need to see this."
She turned her monitor for all of us to see. She had been searching the names in the ledger, cross-referencing them with current global operations.
"The London Edict," she said, pointing to the second chapter in the ledger. "The Syndicate's financial arm. It's run by a shell company. I just broke their firewall."
On the screen was a list of their current active assets. Their most recent high-value acquisition. The one they secured just this month.
It was a name I recognized. A name that sent chills down my spine.
Alistair & Finch. Human Rights Law.
The Curator hadn't just been a member. He had sold his own legacy, his own firm, to the very people he worked for. But the entry showed the transaction as "pending."
"They don't own it yet," I breathed, my mind racing. "Dante, you do. You bought it first."
"Finch was trying to sell it out from under me," Dante realized, a slow, dangerous smile spreading across his face. "He was trying to secure his golden parachute."
"Which means," Nyx said, her own smile matching his, "that we don't just have a list of their past crimes. We have an active, multi-billion-dollar asset they think is theirs. But it's yours. We are inside their vault. We hold the keys to their main bank."
The hunt was over. The war had become a game of infiltration. For the first time, we weren't just reacting. We were in control.