“I know.” There was a pause. “I meant I won't try to stop you.”
She stood beneath the awning of a closed florist's shop and looked at the brittle stems in a bucket by the window.
“Tell me something true about yourself,” she said. “Something that has nothing to do with money.”
He hesitated. “My mother taught me to fix watches. She said if I wanted to know whether a thing was worth keeping, I should learn how it worked.”
“Do you still fix them?”
“Sometimes. When I can't sleep.”
“That sounds lonely.”
She could have answered with sympathy. Instead she said, “Lonely isn't the same as helpless, Dante.”
“I know that, too. I'm getting better at admitting it.”
That evening Mara confirmed that the court had issued a temporary preservation order covering the records at South Canal Street. The storage company was instructed not to move or destroy anything pending a hearing. The order did not give them a right to seize the materials immediately, but it prevented lawful disposal.
At nine forty, a security contractor called Livia. The cameras outside the building showed a delivery van at the loading dock. Two men had presented paperwork claiming to be from the property owner. The clerk refused to release the contents. The men left.
Twenty minutes later, the contractor reported that a rear service door had been forced.
Dante stood from the table. “Get the police there.”
“Already called,” Livia said. “Do not go yourself.”
Selene's phone vibrated. A message from an unknown number showed a photograph of the red-bound ledger on a metal table. Beneath it were six words.
COME ALONE IF YOU WANT IT.
She forwarded it to Mara and the investigators without replying.
Then she looked at Dante. “Someone wants us to be foolish.”
He stared at the photograph. “And it's working.”
THE LANGUAGE OF FIRE
THE WOMAN BENEATH THE HONOR WALL
THE ROSES THAT REMEMBERED
“No,” Selene said, taking the phone back. “It isn't.”
*But when the police reached the storage building, the ledger was gone—and a witness said it had been taken by someone carrying official Valerio credentials.*
The police found the rear service door open and three boxes missing.
The security contractor's video showed a person wearing a dark Valerio staff jacket and a cap pulled low. The image was indistinct. The person had entered after the would-be couriers left and used an access badge registered to an inactive employee. Investigators took the footage, secured the building, and requested records from the storage company.
Luca's credentials had been revoked. The badge was not his, and its use did not prove the thief worked for Dante. Nevertheless, the headlines declared that Valerio men had stolen their own evidence.
By Tuesday morning, reporters camped across the street from Mara's office. Selene could not enter without someone asking whether she had been paid to fabricate a translation.
She told a journalist that her work was being independently assessed and that she had no intention of discussing confidential records. The journalist printed only her first five words. For the rest of the day, a clipped video circulated showing Selene looking angry and refusing to answer.
She remembered her father telling her that truth, unlike a good story, did not always arrive in the right order.
Inside, Mara offered tea. Selene wanted coffee and something stronger, but accepted the tea because her hands were already shaking.
“What's the current position?” she asked.
“The preservation order remains in force,” Mara said. “The court is aware of the breach. The relevant law enforcement agency has an investigator on the matter. The trust's counsel is preparing an emergency application. The stolen boxes are not the only copies.”