I leaned back against the cool leather seat of the car, rereading the file Domenico sent.

Ashley Petrov .

Petrov’s daughter.

I hadn't even known Viktor Petrov had a daughter — not officially.

There were some public records.

No photographs.

No mentions.

Smart of him.

Keep your blood hidden. Keep your vulnerabilities buried.

And yet, somehow, she had slipped through —

wild, reckless, and right into my path at the birthday party.

The way she glared at me.

The way she tried to bark and snap like a little wolf cub that didn’t realize it had wandered into a den of lions.

I smiled to myself, sharp and amused.

She had no idea who she had crossed.

No idea that now, I knew exactly who — and what — she was.

And no idea that I never let debts go unpaid.

Especially not from enemies.

Especially not from interesting enemies.

The city rolled past the car window, but my mind was somewhere else — replaying every second at the Frenchs party.

The moment my second phone buzzed, I already knew it would be Domenico.

Domenico: got something. not clean. sending now.

I opened the file, my fingers moving slow.

Server logs.

Fragments.

An uneven, reckless trail leading back to the hack on the Sicilian servers.

I frowned slightly, studying the way the breaches danced — fast, chaotic, brilliant at hiding in plain sight, but still leaving little cracks.

An amateur.

But a dangerous one.

I kept scrolling.

A final attachment: a blurry still frame from corrupted security footage.

No face.

No name.

Just the shape of a figure hunched over a laptop, fast, determined.

Slim build.

Young.

Not a mercenary.

Not one of Viktor Petrov’s known men.

That meant one thing.

It was someone inside the estate.

Someone who wasn’t meant to be on anyone’s radar.

Someone hidden.

I closed the phone and leaned back in my seat, thinking.

Interesting.

I hadn’t seen many unfamiliar faces at the estate today.