Chapter 8 - THE THIRTEENTH NAME
Victoria Russo was supposed to be dead.
She had died when Dominic was seventeen.
Car accident.
Closed casket.
Except Dad's list had her name marked:
FOUNDER'S SUCCESSOR.
Dominic refused to believe it.
Until we translated the final coded passage.
TWELVE CHAIRS ARE VISIBLE. THE THIRTEENTH OWNS THE ROOM.
There had always been someone above the Twelve.
Victoria.
Dominic's mother had faked her death twenty-four years earlier.
Carlo discovered what she had become.
That was why he tried to destroy the network.
Elias joined Victoria.
Carlo refused.
Dominic's entire understanding of his parents reversed in a single night.
Then Victoria called.
Her voice came through Dominic's phone.
“Hello, sweetheart.”
I watched a feared man become seventeen again.
“Mother?”
“Yes.”
“Where are you?”
“Close.”
“Did you kill Dad?”
“No.”
“Daniel Mercer?”
A pause.
“No.”
“Did you order Victor to?”
Another pause.
“Not directly.”
I hated that answer.
Dominic did too.
Victoria explained that Victor was ordered to recover the final page.
He decided Daniel was too dangerous to leave alive.
She allowed Victor to remain protected afterward.
To her, that distinction mattered.
To us, it didn't.
“Bring the journal,” Victoria said.
“Why?”
“Because Daniel built a safeguard into it.”
“What safeguard?”
“If the journal and final page are decoded together, they identify every account controlled by the alliance.”
Dominic looked at me.
Victoria continued.
“Bring me the girl too.”
Dominic's face changed.
“No.”
“Dominic.”
“No.”
“She is the only one who can finish Daniel's cipher.”
“No.”
Victoria laughed softly.
“You always were sentimental.”
Dominic ended the call.
I asked:
“What now?”
He looked at Dad's list.
Then at me.
May you like
“We finish what your father started.”
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