Sofía married Víctor because she had no other choice. He had bought up all her family's debts and promised that, after the wedding, no one would ever hound her again. But on their wedding night, once they were alone, Sofía witnessed something impossible. Víctor closed the door, looked in the mirror, and began to peel off a sort of artificial skin that covered his body. His face changed, as did his posture, and the older man she had married no longer looked the same. Sofía wanted to scream, but he placed the documents regarding her debts on the table and said, "Now you understand why I needed your surname." She looked at the papers and discovered that the marriage was not a rescue, but a trap that had been set years ago. 💬 What was Sofía's surname really hiding?

The lead mercenary—whose real name was Marcus Vance, though no relation to Julian—sat handcuffed to a bolted metal chair in the center of the room. His tactical vest had been stripped away, leaving him in a sweat-stained black compression shirt, a nasty bruise swelling along his jawline from where one of Julian’s operatives had subdued him on the pier.

Julian stood leaning against the concrete wall, arms crossed over his chest, watching the prisoner with steady, unblinking eyes. Sofía sat at a small steel table opposite the prisoner, the leather-bound family folder open before her like a prosecutor’s dossier.

"You’re wasting your time," Marcus spat, blood fleaking from his cracked lip. "I’m a contractor. I don't know who funds the umbrella account in Zurich. I get a text, I clear a target, I get paid. That’s how the syndicate operates."

"The syndicate doesn't exist anymore, Marcus," Julian said quietly, pushing off the wall and stepping closer to the chair. "Your local handlers in the city police department were rounded up by federal marshals twenty minutes ago. Your Swiss offshore accounts were frozen by midday. Right now, you are looking at twenty federal felony counts of domestic terrorism and corporate espionage."

Marcus flinched, his tough-guy facade finally cracking under the weight of absolute, unvarnished reality.

"I want a deal," Marcus muttered, staring down at the concrete floor.

"You don't negotiate deals," Sofía interrupted, her voice cutting through the cold room like a scalpel. She stood up, leaning over the table to look him directly in the eyes. "You answer my questions. Who gave the order to assassinate my father six months ago?"

Marcus looked up, startled by the fierce, unyielding intensity in her gaze. He swallowed hard, his throat dry.

"I... I don't know his real name," Marcus confessed, his voice dropping to a nervous whisper. "We only ever knew him through an intermediary. An elderly corporate lawyer who handled the legal filings for the municipal tax liens."

Julian’s eyes narrowed instantly. "Arthur’s legal counsel. Cornelius Vance."

"Yes! That’s him!" Marcus blurted out, desperate to save himself. "Cornelius was the one who orchestrated the whole thing. He said the Valdez family charter was the only thing standing between the international shipping syndicate and total monopoly over the eastern seaboard. He said your father wouldn't sign away the rights, so they had to manufacture the debt, force the bankruptcy, and push him out of the picture."

Sofía gripped the edge of the steel table so hard her fingers turned white. A wave of grief mixed with cold, burning fury washed over her. Her father’s sudden stroke—the tragedy that had shattered her family and forced her into servitude—wasn't natural at all. It had been murder disguised as financial ruin.

"Where is Cornelius now?" Julian demanded, stepping forward and grabbing the back of Marcus’s chair.

"I don't know! I swear!" Marcus panicked, pulling against the handcuffs. "He left his downtown office this afternoon. He chartered a private flight out of the municipal airfield. He’s heading for the coast—trying to catch a freighter out of international waters!"

Julian let go of the chair, pulled out his encrypted satellite phone from his pocket, and punched a series of rapid commands into the screen.

"Satellite relay active," Julian muttered into the device. "Track all outbound private charters from the municipal airfield over the last forty minutes. Cross-reference transponder signals with maritime shipping lanes."

A green blinking dot appeared on the phone’s interface, tracking a small, high-speed jet cutting across the coastline toward the private docks thirty miles north.