Chapter 6
Opening the archive required blood.
Literally.
Clara drove me to a private lab under guard the next morning. They swabbed my cheek, drew blood, photographed the ring, copied the papers David brought, and sent everything through emergency probate channels.
I sat in the chair with bandages under my shirt and Leo’s dinosaur in my purse.
Matteo waited in the hall.
He did not hover.
He did not order me to be brave.
He simply stayed close enough that danger would have to pass through him first.
That felt unfamiliar.
Almost unbearable.
When the nurse finished, I asked, “What happens if I’m not who they think?”
Clara snapped her bag shut.
“Then they still tried to harm a child, attack you, and sabotage a public venue. We proceed.”
“And if I am?”
Matteo answered from the doorway.
“Then the city shakes.”
By evening, it did.
The bloodline match came back strong enough for a judge to grant temporary standing.
Rosalina Moretti.
Rose Lane.
My grandmother.
Me.
Ava Lane.
No longer nobody.
Clara filed to unseal Lorenzo De Luca’s protected archive.
The petition triggered alerts.
Within an hour, three lawyers called.
Two judges recused themselves.
One retired police captain boarded a plane and was arrested before takeoff.
Matteo watched it all without smiling.
I thought he would enjoy it.
He did not.
“My father’s name is in there,” he said.
“Do you want it hidden?”
His eyes snapped to mine.
“No.”
The answer came fast.
Clean.
Then quieter.
“I want to stop being afraid that I am only a better-dressed version of him.”
That honesty surprised me.
Men like Matteo did not usually offer fear.
I sat beside him.
“My grandmother ran and became a cleaning woman. Maybe survival changes the shape of a person.”
“And my father?”
“Maybe hiding rot changes it too.”
He laughed once.
Dark.
Fair.
That night, David disappeared from the safe house.
He left a note.
I can fix one thing.
Matteo found me reading it and cursed.
“He is going to Varrano.”
“Can we stop him?”
“No.”
“Can we save him?”
Matteo looked at me carefully.
“Do you want to?”
I thought about David stealing my savings.
The ring.
The nights I ate crackers for dinner because he had emptied my account.
Then I thought about him taking the hit in the stairwell.
“I don’t know.”
“That is an honest answer.”
By midnight, David sent one video to my phone.
He stood in a warehouse, face bruised, voice shaking.
“If this reaches Ava, I’m probably dead or arrested. The Varrano family paid me to steal the ring. Julian loosened the strip at Lumina. The target was Matteo’s son if possible, Ava if necessary. Lorenzo’s archive is real. And Senator Bellamy is protecting them.”
Then he lifted the camera.
The warehouse behind him was full of crates.
Medical supplies.
Passports.
Cash.
Files.
A door slammed in the video.
David turned.
The screen went black.
I stared at it.
My hand covered my mouth.
Matteo watched once.
Then sent it to Clara, police, and federal agents already waiting for the archive.
“You used his video,” I whispered.
“Yes.”
“Will you try to find him?”
Matteo looked at me.
“I already sent men.”
At dawn, they found David alive in an alley behind the warehouse.
Barely.
But alive.
He gave a statement before surgery.
The warehouse was raided.
Senator Bellamy’s nephew was arrested onsite.
Varrano’s accountant surrendered with a hard drive.
The city started cracking open.
But Varrano himself vanished.
And his final message came to me.
A white envelope at the safe house gate.
Inside was a photo of Leo’s drawing.
The one where I had wings.
Across it, someone had written:
Angels fall too.
Matteo’s face went dead calm.
I had learned by then that calm was the worst kind of rage.
May you like
He folded the paper and looked at me.
“Now we end this.”
