The video evidence arrived like a ghost from the past, delivered in a sealed drive by one of Dante’s most trusted fixers during a tense afternoon in the study. Kane’s remnants, in their desperate flailing after the Delacroix burn, had unearthed old surveillance archives from the night of the Voss family m******e the compound fire that had left Elena scarred and orphaned in more ways than one. Dante had demanded every scrap of intelligence on lingering threats, and this was the unintended prize: raw footage from hidden cameras around the perimeter, timestamped with the chaos of that fateful night.
Elena entered the study to find him hunched over the large monitor, the phoenix pendant she wore suddenly feeling like a noose. The room was dim, lit only by the screen’s glow, and Dante’s face w
