The road to Romania bled through mountains and midnight.
A pale fog clung to the trees, curling like ghost fingers through the branches, brushing across the windows of the car as Stanley drove in silence. Orla sat beside him, her hand wrapped around the photograph Lazarus had thrown at her feet. She hadn’t let go of it in hours.
Her daughter.
Alive.
She didn’t cry. She couldn’t. That part of her had been buried long ago—right along with the lie.
The one they fed her.
The one she believed.
Until now.
“Say it again,” Stanley murmured, his voice a soft anchor in the storm.
Orla’s voice was hoarse. “They took her from me. Said she didn’t survive. I was nineteen. They made it look like punishment for falling in love with another operative.”
Stanley glanced sideways. “And the man?”
“D
