The rain continued to pound against the windows of the hidden room as Elias sat across from Gabriel, still holding the photograph he had found earlier. The image of the faceless woman had been bothering him since the night he saw it, and after everything Gabriel had revealed about his father, he was no longer willing to accept another half-truth.“Who was she?” Elias asked, placing the photograph on the table. “The woman in the picture with my father. The one whose face you removed.”Gabriel stared at the photograph for several seconds before finally answering. “Her name was Marianne Vale. She was an investigative journalist, and she was one of the first people to discover what the Circle was really doing.”Elias leaned forward. “What did she discover?”“She began investigating suspicious government contracts,” Gabriel explained. “Companies with no history were suddenly receiving enormous deals, politicians were changing policies overnight, judges were making decisions that benefited

For several seconds, neither Elias nor Lena spoke.The small wooden box sat between them on the table, its strange symbol catching the weak light from the kitchen window. Elias couldn’t take his eyes off it. The same mark had been engraved into the pendant his father had given him, and now it had appeared on something Lena’s mother had deliberately left behind.There had to be a reason.Lena noticed the way he was staring at the box and tightened her grip around it.“You know what this symbol means, don’t you?” she asked.“I don’t,” Elias admitted. “But my father had the same one.”Lena looked at his pendant again, visibly unsettled. “My mother never explained it. She only told me that I should never open this box unless someone came looking for me.”“Did anyone ever come looking?”“Not until recently.”Elias’s expression hardened. “Then I think you should open it now.”Lena hesitated.“My mother told me to keep it locked.”“Your mother also disappeared.”The words came out more harsh

The drive back to Ashvale was painfully quiet. Elias sat in the back seat of Gabriel's car, his father's letter folded inside his jacket while the words he had read at the ruins continued to replay in his mind. Do not trust Gabriel completely. Until that day, he had believed Gabriel was the one person who had remained on his side after everyone else had turned against his father. Now he wasn't sure whether the man sitting behind the steering wheel had protected him out of loyalty to David or guilt over what he had done.When they finally reached the apartment building, Gabriel locked the front door behind them and checked the windows before turning around. Lena stood near the staircase, watching the two men with quiet concern.“You deserve to know the truth,” Gabriel said, lowering himself carefully onto the sofa. His injured shoulder was still bothering him, but he seemed more concerned about what he was about to reveal than the pain.Elias folded his arms. “That's what everyone tell

The old railway office had been abandoned for nearly fifteen years, but Elias couldn’t shake the feeling that someone had been there recently. Dust covered the broken windows and rusted signs outside, yet the brass key in Lena’s hand seemed to belong exactly where they were standing. Gabriel led them through a narrow corridor beneath the building until they reached a steel door hidden behind a collapsed section of wall.“This place belonged to your father,” Gabriel explained, running his fingers across the rusted lock. “David used the railway system because nobody ever thought to look beneath it.”Elias glanced at him suspiciously. “And you knew about this?”“I knew he had a safe location somewhere beneath the city. I didn’t know which one until I saw that key.”Lena inserted the brass key into the lock, and after several attempts, something clicked inside the door. Elias helped Gabriel push it open, revealing a small chamber that looked untouched by time.Inside were filing cabinets,

The ringing phone stopped abruptly, leaving an uncomfortable silence in the railway vault. Elias looked toward Gabriel, but the older man was already moving toward the entrance, his attention fixed on the corridor beyond the steel door.“We need to leave,” Gabriel said, his voice low but urgent. “Now.”Adrian frowned. “They found us?”“I don’t know,” Gabriel replied as he reached for the door. “But I know that phone wasn’t there when we arrived.”Elias grabbed the encrypted file and slipped it inside his jacket while Lena secured the wooden box. They followed Gabriel through the narrow passage, moving quickly through the abandoned railway tunnels until they reached an old service exit several streets away.The moment they emerged into the night, Gabriel stopped.“There.”Elias followed his gaze and saw two black vehicles turning slowly onto the road behind them.“They’re here,” Gabriel said.“Run,” Adrian ordered.They scattered into the darkness.Elias grabbed Lena’s hand and pulled