I stepped inside the arc of his fist and drove my palm under his chin.
Pain shot through my wrist, but his head snapped back long enough for Gabriel to seize him from behind.
Together, we forced him face-first onto the desk.
Gabriel twisted Marco’s arm until the shoulder strained.
“Where were you when Natalie called me?” Gabriel demanded.
Marco laughed against the polished wood.
“Still pretending you could save her?”
Gabriel’s grip tightened.
Natalie’s video reached its next sentence.
“If I die, the man responsible will try to destroy my phone before the final upload completes.
Do not let him disconnect it from a network.”
I looked at the screen.
A small symbol pulsed in the corner.
Uploading: 82 percent.
Marco saw it too.
His expression changed.
Until that moment, he had been angry.
Now he was afraid.
He threw his weight sideways, knocking Gabriel into the desk.
Then he lunged for the phone.
I caught his ankle.
He fell hard, but his fingers closed around the device.
“The network,” Marco gasped.
“Kill the network!”
The library doors burst inward.
Two guards entered with weapons raised.
Marco pointed at me.
“Shoot her!”
Neither guard moved.
A woman stepped between them wearing a charcoal coat over a dark suit.
Her black hair was pulled into a low knot, and a federal badge hung from her belt.
“Anyone who fires becomes part of a federal murder case,” she said.
Marco stared at her.
Gabriel closed his eyes briefly, as if recognizing the end of something he had known was collapsing for months.
The woman looked at the phone.
“Did the upload finish?”
The screen reached 100 percent.
“It did,” I said.
She nodded.
“Special Agent Sofia Ruiz.
Project Augustine.”
Marco’s men began filling the hallway behind her, but they were not moving toward us.
Federal tactical officers had them kneeling against the walls one by one.
Samuel lowered the knife.
“How did you get here?” he asked.
Agent Ruiz looked at me.
“The card.”
I took Gabriel’s black invitation from my pocket.
The address 3103 North Astor Street was still visible beneath the streak of Marco’s blood on my fingers.
Ruiz explained that Natalie had selected the number months earlier as a silent distress code.
If anyone entered the mansion using a visitor credential marked 3103, the security system sent an encrypted alert to the federal team monitoring the property.
The three cuts on the card had told me the location was unsafe.
The number had told the government to listen.
I looked at Gabriel.
“You knew about the code?”
