Chapter 13 - THE CROWN LEDGER
Clara held Emma against her chest.
“No. No, no, no.”
Gabriel pressed his fingers to the child’s neck.
For three unbearable seconds, there was nothing.
Then Emma gasped.
Clara sobbed and kissed her face.
The little girl’s eyes fluttered open.
“Mommy?”
“I’m here.”
“Blue is scared.”
“So am I.”
Gabriel wrapped his arms around them.
For one moment, the war beneath the palace disappeared.
Then the archive alarm sounded.
Vivian had reached the central chamber.
A glass cylinder rose from the floor, surrounded by black screens.
Vivian pressed her bleeding palm against the first scanner.
The system rejected her.
“Biometric authorization denied.”
Gabriel stood.
“She still needs all three keys.”
Vivian turned toward them.
“No. I only need the child.”
She held up a blood tube taken from the medical room.
Emma’s blood.
Vivian inserted it into the second scanner.
“Isabella line confirmed.”
Alessandro pulled the knife from his shoulder and approached the chamber.
“You cannot replace Adrian.”
Vivian smiled.
“I do not intend to.”
She entered another sample.
Gabriel’s blood.
He touched the wound beneath his bandage.
During his captivity, they had taken enough blood to imitate his authorization.
“Adrian line confirmed.”
The final screen requested Alessandro’s phrase.
Vivian looked at him.
“You entered it into the outer console.”
Alessandro’s face changed.
The system had recorded his voice.
Vivian played the phrase.
“The crown protects no king.”
The cylinder unlocked.
Thousands of files appeared across the screens.
Names.
Bank accounts.
Military programs.
Hidden adoptions.
Bribes.
Disappearances.
The Crown Ledger was open.
Vivian touched the transmission command.
A progress bar appeared.
Global release in sixty seconds.
Gabriel moved toward the control panel.
Vivian raised a gun.
“Stay back.”
“You release those files, and innocent people will die.”
“They already died protecting your father’s secrets.”
“This is not justice.”
“No. It is freedom.”
“You don’t care about the victims.”
Vivian’s expression cracked.
“My father built Lazarus. Isabella tried to expose him. She would have destroyed our family and left me with nothing.”
“So you killed her.”
“I gave her a choice.”
“You poisoned her.”
“I saved the Valmont name.”
Alessandro stared at Vivian as if seeing her for the first time.
“You murdered the only person who ever defended you.”
Vivian looked at him.
“She chose Adrian over me.”
“She chose the truth.”
The progress bar reached forty seconds.
Gabriel whispered to Marcus.
“The rabbit.”
Marcus threw the toy.
Gabriel caught it and removed the transparent map from the ear.
He inserted it into a narrow slot beneath the console.
Vivian laughed.
“That is not a key.”
“No,” Gabriel said. “It is a mirror.”
The archive screens changed.
Every file was duplicated.
But the copies were being redirected.
Not to the public transmission system.
To an independent judicial server Isabella had created decades earlier.
Alessandro understood.
“She planned for this.”
Gabriel nodded.
“My mother knew the archive might someday be opened by the wrong person.”
Vivian fired.
Clara pushed Emma behind the silver case.
The bullet struck Gabriel in the chest.
He fell.
Clara screamed.
The global transmission reached ten seconds.
The judicial transfer reached ninety-eight percent.
Vivian ran toward the central cable and raised her blade.
Alessandro stepped between her and the console.
She drove the knife toward him.
Rosa fired from the floor.
The bullet struck Vivian’s leg.
Vivian collapsed.
The global transmission reached one second.
May you like
Gabriel lifted his hand and pressed the final command.
The screens went black.
