22. Valaria
Valaria
The palazzo fades behind us. The road unspools behind us like a lit fuse. I should be exhausted. But my mind is sprinting ahead, faster than the tires on the asphalt.
I don’t shake.
Not in public.
Not in private.
I lean against the seat—close my eyes. Shiver inside.
The code word. Information I couldn’t find whispered through that secure line.
The ultimatum.
I’ve heard enough threats to know when one is personal.
I’m holding the kind of information that makes governments sweat.
We drive through the night.
Pietro doesn’t push.
He drives in silence. One hand on the wheel, the other resting near mine. Not touching. Just close enough to say: I’m here. If you want me.
I want him.
But I want answers more.
We reach the southern compound just after sunrise.
What’s left of it.
The entire site was thought to be destroyed years ago—cleared out, detonated, sealed. An off-grid black site with no official record—the last trace of my mother. I’d buried it in my memory under the file marked regret.
Now it’s open again.
And waiting.
We’re met by a woman wearing a crisp white shirt under a tactical vest, dark hair in a braid, eyes sharp and unsmiling.
“Valaria Serrano,” she says. “I thought you were a myth.”
“Well, I’m here—in the flesh.”
Her gaze flicks to Pietro.
“I trust him.”
That’s all I say.
Because trust, now, is heavier than armor.
She takes us down a gravel path, past crumbling outbuildings and scorched fences. The wind smells like metal and ash. A low hum buzzes through the ruins—generators, maybe. Or ghosts.
Finally, we stop at a steel hatch half-buried in the earth.
“This was welded shut until yesterday,” the woman says. “Our team found it while clearing old security lines.”
“And?” I ask.
She unlocks the hatch.
It groans open.
Inside: a single room. Concrete walls. Dust. A rusted terminal. A sealed file case on a broken cot.
I step in.
The air is stale. Cold.
I cross to the file case. Flip the clasps. Inside, there’s only one folder. Unmarked. Heavy.
I open it.
And everything in me stills.
My name. My childhood records. School transcripts. Psychological assessments. Surveillance logs.
Photos of me—my childhood.
Dates. Locations. Notes in red ink.
“Valaria,” Pietro says gently behind me. “What is this? This is nothing I’ve seen.”
I swallow hard.
“My mother worked for Intelligence,” I say. “She disappeared—died—when I was nine. They said it was an accident.”
“And it wasn’t?”
“I don’t know,” I whisper. “But someone was watching me. For years. This… this file proves it. These photos were taken in Manhattan, these in Venice. I’ve been surveilled my entire life.”
There’s a page at the back.
Subject Codename: CRIMSON ORACLE
Status: Dormant. Reactivation: Pending.
I stagger back from the file; my breath caught somewhere between silence and a scream. My heart slams into my ribs.
Pietro moves beside me. I let him steady me.
I’ve never been free—not really. Nothing leading me here was by chance. Someone has been waiting for this moment to pull me back—to do their bidding.
But why?