23. Pietro
Pietro
Valaria’s back is against the wall.
Legs folded. Arms wrapped around her knees.
The file spread open on the floor of the room of our safehouse like a confession laid bare.
I’ve seen Valaria Serrano disable assassins, command rooms, silence politicians with a single arched brow. But I’ve never seen her look like this.
Quiet. Still. Haunted.
I kneel beside her.
“Talk to me,” I say.
She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t run.
But she doesn’t look at me either.
“I remember that building,” she whispers. “The one in the photo. I thought it was a school.”
“What was it really?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice is fragile. “They said it was an accelerated program for high-potential students. My mother pulled strings to get me in. I was six. I thought it was a gift.”
“And now?”
“I. . .I was being trained. I just didn’t know it.”
The words hang there, heavy as lead.
I glance through the file again. The page with the codename—CRIMSON ORACLE. The redacted entries. The assessments. The language.
It reads like a sleeper profile.
A classified asset.
A time bomb.
“Did you ever do anything for them?” I ask carefully.
“No.” She shakes her head hard. “Nothing conscious. But strings must have been pulled behind the scenes to manipulate me.”
“How?”
“Opportunities fell into my lap. It wasn’t luck. I think my path has been engineered. My black ops training. The power I have over the media. Tools for them to exploit.”
“You’re a natural at what you do. That’s you, not them. Skilled. Diabolical.”
“Am I? I don’t know. Maybe I didn’t do any of it myself?”
I exhale slowly.
Because now I have to ask the question I hate.
“Valaria,” I say. “Do you think someone just hasn’t triggered you yet? Or do you think they already have?”
She finally looks at me.
And her eyes…
God.
It’s not fury.
This is fear. Not of me. Of the secrets—the suspicion she’s carried.
“I don’t know,” she says.
I reach for her hand. She lets me take it.
I hold it tight. Anchor-tight. Like she might drift away if I don’t.
“We’ll find out,” I say. “Together.”
“But what if they’re still watching? I thought this assignment was about Emma, not me. What if the real reason, I’m here is to finish what my mother started?”
I catch her gaze—hold it.
“Then we stop them.”
She blinks. “You’d go that far?”
I don’t hesitate.
“For you?” I say, “There’s no far.”
Later that night, I send a secure message to an old contact from my military years. Someone who used to design psychological locks for black-ops trainees.
The subject line is short: I need a deactivation protocol.
Because if Valaria is the Crimson Oracle...
Then someone, somewhere, still has the key.
And I will find them.
Before they find her first.