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“Ferretti could claim someone used his name.”

“He could,” Artemus agreed.

He opened another file. A scanned letter filled the central monitor, bearing the seal of the diocese and Ferretti’s signature at the bottom. The final stroke slanted upward before cutting sharply back through his surname.

I knew that mark. I had seen it beneath my ordination papers, on parish appointments and funding approvals. Ferretti had signed the documents that made me a priest with the same hand he had used to authorize the movement of trafficked women through Church property.

Raze moved to my side as I let out a string of curses.

“My own fucking bishop. He knew who I was.”

Atlas’s expression hardened. “While you were in exile?”

“From the moment I walked through those church doors.”

Ferretti had not merely known me as Father Demitri Marco. He had known the name I had hidden beneath my collar.

Demitri Cavalho.

The missing son of a family powerful enough to draw blood across Italy.

He had known where I lived, which parish I served and which vulnerable people passed through my doors. He had listened when I spoke about the convent, my food programme and the women who came to me seeking protection.

I thought of the speed with which the Coccico men had reached the church after Adriana stumbled inside.

I had assumed they followed her.

Perhaps they had never needed to.

Perhaps someone had told them exactly where she would be safest.

Adriana touched my arm.

Her fingers barely rested against my sleeve, but the contact pulled me away from the memory before it swallowed the room.

I looked down at her.

Horror filled her face, but there was no disbelief in it. Her father had already taught her what it meant to discover that someone familiar had been hiding behind a stranger’s face.

Now the Church was teaching me the same lesson.

“Keep going,” I said.

Artemus closed the diocesan records.

“There’s another file.”

He opened a document labelled COORDINATION.

The first page contained an organizational chain. Supervisors sat at the top, followed by transport managers, financial coordinators and men responsible for matching routes with payments. Each level existed to ensure officials were warned, checkpoints were avoided and victims disappeared without interrupting legitimate business.

Artemus scrolled.

Halfway down the page, a familiar name appeared.

Gabriele Serra.

Adriana stopped beside me.