Chapter Five: In his Empire.

The suite didn't feel like a room on the fourth day, instead it felt like a cage I was locked inside, watched.

I spent the first three days doing exactly what Matteo told me to do because survival meant everything to me. I carried out every task given to me including working on the security breach until it was impressive enough to pass Ethan’s inspection. 

On the fourth night I pushed Ethan. He brought dinner at eight as usual, and turned to leave like he was programmed to avoid conversation longer than five seconds. 

“You knew my father,” I said as he turned his back to leave.

Ethan stopped with his hand on the door handle. “I need to be on my way, Eat before your food gets cold, Ms. Brooks, you wouldn't like it.” he said.

“You were at the house,” I said. “Three nights before the attack. You drove the black car that was outside for hours. I remember because my father made me memorize plates when I was twelve.” 

He turned.

“Mr. Romano doesn’t like his staff discussing personal history,” Ethan said, his voice flat. “For your own safety, I suggest you focus on the work you were hired to do.” 

He left before I could answer.

I waited until the corridor outside Matteo’s suite went quiet.

Ethan had left earlier than usual, and the guards had rotated out of sight. 

I stood there a moment longer than I should have. I listened for movement and voices around me. I adjusted my stance, kept my steps quiet, and moved closer to the door. My hand hovered near the handle, then I pressed it down and slipped inside.. I turned the handle and entered. I moved across the room slowly, keeping my steps light.

I checked the drawers and the computers but I only found business records and deals.

I continued with the walls.

My fingers brushed along the edges of the glass panels. The third panel on the left felt different.

I stepped back and looked at it again, from a different angle. 

“Found you,” I whispered.

I pressed, and a section of the glass lifted. Inside, taped to the side, was a drive. I pulled the drive and turned it over. On the back were seven letters: E. VALE. P.

Elias Vale Parker. My father.'s name.

I slid it into the lining of my boot and put the glass back exactly as I’d found it.

“You’re either very brave or very stupid.”

A voice came from behind me.

I froze and turned slowly.

Matteo stood by the door.

“How long have you been standing there?” I asked.

“Long enough,” he said.

“Then you already know why I’m here,” I said.

“I know what you took,” he said. “The question is what you think you’re going to do with it.”

Elias came to me three days before the attack because someone was after him and he was smart enough to know he couldn’t outrun them alone. He wanted protection. He wanted a deal. He offered me the key to his firewall in exchange for getting you out of the country before they found you.” 

“What changed,” I asked.

“He realized what kind of man I was,” he said, and there was no apology in it, just a statement of fact. “He decided dying with his secrets was better than letting me keep you. He left the drive with me and said if you ever came looking, I should give you a choice he didn’t get to make.” 

He stepped closer. “You want to know what’s on the drive, Sienna,” he said, “It’s the last piece of his cipher. The part that unlocks the files he died to protect. The part that dealers and company owners have killed to get their hands on.”

“You can keep digging. You can plug that drive in and see what your father thought was worth burning for. But understand this,” he said, leaning in “the night everything went wrong for you was the night Elias Vale sat in my office and chose between your life and his legacy. He chose you.

Matteo Romano hadn’t been the man hunting my father. He’d been the man my father went to for help, and the reason he didn’t get it was because his help always came with a price my father wasn’t willing to pay. 

“You were there,” I said. “You were connected to the night everything went wrong. You didn’t start the fire, but you gave him the reason to light it.” 

“Here’s your warning, Sienna, and it’s the only one you get. You can work for me and stay alive, or you can keep digging into a past that already killed one Vale. You have until morning, because after that, I'll stop protecting you from the people who’ve been looking for that drive.” 

He left, closing the door behind him.

“You chose me,”I muttered. I stood there with my father’s name carved into a drive in my boot and the weight of his choice pressing in on my mind.

I reached down, pulled the drive from my boot, and held it in my palm.

“You chose me,”I muttered.

If my father died protecting this, then I was done running from it.

Let them come.

I moved across the room and set the drive on the desk. I opened Matteo’s workstation and brought up the interface he had given me access to. The system asked for authorization. I hesitated for half a second, then forced it through using the credentials I had memorized from his files. The drive loaded slowly and finally opened, and the first set of coordinates appeared, followed by names I did not recognize. It carried my father’s signature encryption key.