Chapter 3 - The Woman in the Photograph
Sylvio returned to the restaurant before dawn.
Mia was awake.
She sat at the window watching rain fall.
He sat beside her.
“I found something.”
“My mom?”
“Yes.”
Mia's eyes widened.
“She's alive?”
Sylvio hesitated.
“No.”
The child's face fell.
“But I found photographs.”
Mia nodded.
“Can I see?”
He showed her.
She touched her mother's face.
“That was her.”
“Yes.”
“Who is the man?”
“Adrian Vale.”
“The doctor.”
“Yes.”
Mia pulled back.
“He's bad.”
Sylvio nodded.
“Your mother knew him.”
“She hated him.”
“Why?”
“He made her work.”
“Doing what?”
“Making poison.”
Sylvio froze.
Mia continued.
“She tried to stop.”
“What happened?”
“He said he'd hurt me.”
Sylvio's hands tightened.
“She protected me.”
“That sounds like your mother.”
Mia looked at him.
“You knew her?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know?”
“Because you do.”
She smiled faintly.
Later, Sylvio found the missing pieces.
Sarah Bell had not simply been a laboratory assistant.
She had been one of the world's leading experts in rare toxins.
She had discovered a compound that could kill selectively.
But there was one problem.
She couldn't figure out how to make it stable.
Then she discovered a natural resistance in her own body.
Mia inherited it.
Vale realized the potential.
He wanted to create a poison that would kill anyone except those who possessed the resistance.
A weapon.
A weapon that could be used against powerful targets while leaving no obvious trace.
Sylvio realized why Mia mattered.
She was the key.
But there was another mystery.
Why Sylvio?
He investigated his father's old records.
His father had been poisoned twenty years earlier.
Everyone believed it was natural causes.
It wasn't.
He had survived.
Because he too possessed partial resistance.
Sylvio stared at the documents.
“This is why.”
Vincent frowned.
“Why what?”
“Why Vale wanted me dead.”
Sylvio explained.
His father had discovered the poison.
He had hidden the research.
Vale had spent fifteen years trying to recreate it.
Now he had.
The restaurant attack was only the beginning.
That afternoon, Sylvio returned home.
Mia was drawing.
He looked at the paper.
A red door.
A black room.
A little girl.
And a man with silver eyes.
“Who is this?”
“Vale.”
“Who is the other man?”
Mia pointed.
Sylvio stared.
It was him.
Or someone who looked like him.
“That's not you.”
“I know.”
“Who?”
“My mom said he was your father.”
Sylvio stared.
His father had been dead for twenty years.
Mia added,
“He came to see her.”
“When?”
“Before I was born.”
Sylvio sat down.
His father had known Sarah.
Perhaps he had known about the resistance.
Perhaps he had protected her.
Then someone knocked at the door.
Security opened it.
An elderly woman stood outside.
She held a box.
“I knew the day would come.”
Sylvio approached.
“Who are you?”
“Sarah Bell's sister.”
Mia ran toward her.
“Who is she?”
The woman began crying.
“I knew your mother.”
She held Mia's face.
“You have her eyes.”
Sylvio asked,
“Why are you here?”
She looked at him.
“Because Sarah told me if anything happened to her, I was to give you this.”
She handed him the box.
Inside were journals.
Photographs.
And a handwritten note.
Sylvio opened it.
Sylvio,
If my daughter ever finds you, do not trust anyone who tells you she is only a child.
She is evidence.
She is the proof that something impossible can survive.
And if Vale returns, he will come for her.
I need you to understand one thing.
Your father knew.
He knew everything.
The letter ended.
Sylvio looked at Mia.
She was watching him.
“What's wrong?”
He swallowed.
“Your mother knew my father.”
“Was he good?”
Sylvio looked at the photograph.
“I think he tried.”
The woman lowered her voice.
“There's something else.”
“What?”
“Sarah didn't die from the poison.”
Sylvio froze.
“How?”
“She was murdered.”
“By Vale?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
The woman looked terrified.
“Your father's closest friend.”
Sylvio's face went cold.
“Who?”
She whispered the name.
“Marco Torino.”
The room fell silent.
Sylvio stared.
Marco.
His oldest friend.
The man sitting beside him at dinner.
The man who had been in the restaurant when the poison arrived.
The man who had always known where Sylvio ate.
Vincent entered.
“Sylvio?”
He looked at him.
“Do not let Marco leave the building.”
Vincent's hand moved toward his weapon.
“Why?”
May you like
Sylvio closed the journal.
“Because my grandfather's murderer has been sitting at my right hand for thirty years.”
