She couldn't go on. The tears came unbidden, hot and furious. It wasn't just the pain of discovering her father was a traitor. It was the collapse of the hero's image she'd carried for years. It was the weight of the name she bore. It was the realization that she was the link between two worlds built on lies.
"So the kidnapping… it could be connected to all this?" she asked, trying to pull herself together. "Could it be… an old score being settled?"
Vincenzo ran a hand over his face, looking as exhausted as a man reliving a nightmare that had never ended.
"It's not just possible. It's likely. This story involves more people than you can imagine, Lara. Men who vanished along with the evidence. Offshore accounts. Entire lives built on silence."
He looked at her with complete seriousness.
"Someone is cleaning up the past. And your father… might have been the next piece to eliminate. Only they pulled him out of prison first. Now, they want to silence him outside."
Lara felt her knees buckle. She had to grab the edge of the table to steady herself.
"I don't know who to trust anymore."
Vincenzo stepped closer, slowly. He touched her shoulder gently, a gesture that, coming from him, felt almost tender.
"You don't have to trust me." His voice dropped lower. "But I'm the only one who wants you to live long enough to learn the truth."
She looked at him, eyes still shimmering with unshed tears. Part of her wanted to hate him. Another part wanted to curl up in his arms and cry until the world ended.
But neither of those things was safe.
Nothing was.
And now, the past was coming back with teeth and claws.
Vincenzo's phone vibrated, shattering the moment.
"One of my analysts found something," he said, answering on speakerphone.
A voice came through urgently:
"We intercepted a signal from the phone used to call Miss Fernandes. It was placed from a rural area about 60 kilometers outside the city. We're sending the coordinates."
Lara stared at him, her heart hammering.
"Send men there immediately."
Vincenzo's voice sliced through the silence like a blade.
Lara stopped breathing for a second, hanging on to every word of the call.
"No direct approach," Vincenzo commanded. "Surround the area, monitor it, and report any movement to me. Don't take a single step without my order."
He hung up.
"So? Let's go!" she urged, already moving toward the door.
But Vincenzo simply leaned back against the desk, arms crossed, his expression serious and impenetrable.
"Have you lost your mind?"
"What?"
"Going there now would be the biggest mistake you could make. This could be a trap. And if it is, you're not the target. You're the bait."
Lara stood frozen in the middle of the room, his words slicing through the air. She wanted to argue. To scream. To tell him he was wrong. But deep down… she knew he was right.
"So we're just going to wait?" she asked, her voice tight with emotion. "Sit here while my father might be getting tortured by someone who's playing with us?"
Vincenzo approached her slowly.
"We're not waiting. We're hunting."
His tone was calm, calculated, as if he were solving an equation, not dealing with a man's life.
Lara turned away, walking to the window. Outside, the city carried on, oblivious to the chaos devouring her world.
She began pacing back and forth, her thoughts colliding in a storm. And then a question formed. Small, subtle… but sharp as a splinter under her skin.
She stopped.
Turned slowly to Vincenzo.
"How did you trace the call from my phone so quickly?"
Vincenzo raised an eyebrow.
"Do you really want to know?"
"I do." Her voice was steady.
He walked over to the bar, poured himself a glass of whiskey, took a sip, and answered as casually as if he were reading the weather report:
"Your phone's been monitored for some time."
Silence exploded in the room like a bomb.
"What?!"
"It's standard protocol, Lara," he said, holding her gaze without flinching. "You entered my world. I had to make sure you wouldn't become a threat. That you weren't sharing information with the wrong people. That I'd know where you go, who you talk to, what you're looking for."
"You're spying on me?!"
"I was protecting you. And myself, of course."
"You violated my privacy!"
"And you signed a contract, remember?" he shot back sharply. "Every rule was clear. What did you think 'no secrets' meant?"
She took two steps back, as though his very presence had suddenly turned toxic.
"You don't trust me."
"Trust is a luxury I can't afford."
"And you expect me to sleep in the same bed as you, knowing you're watching me like a criminal?"
He didn't answer immediately. The tension stretched between them, taut as a wire about to snap.
"I don't expect anything, Lara," he said at last, more softly. "But I want you to know one thing…"
She stared at him, eyes blazing.
"Yes, I tracked your phone. And thanks to that, we have a chance of finding your father alive. If I'd waited for your permission, it might have been too late."
Lara felt her chest tighten.
She hated to admit it, but he had a point.
She hated him.
And she hated even more the fact that, no matter how many lines he crossed, he always managed to save the game when no one else could.
But one question kept hammering in her mind: How far would he go? And how far would she let him?
*******
Night fell quickly, as if the world itself were in a rush to plunge into darkness.
Lara felt her pulse pounding in her temples as she stared at the monitor in Vincenzo's office. Live maps, red dots moving across the screen, coordinates crisscrossing in silence. The rural area was surrounded by satellite feeds, drones, and discreet cars from his team.
But no sign of her father.
No clue. No image. No proof that he was even still alive.
Rage festered inside her like acid. But now it came with something new: fear of Vincenzo. The man who made her tremble at night was the same one who'd admitted to tracking her for days. Watching her every step, every breath, like a predator.
She felt exposed. Violated. And yet… protected?
"I should be out there," she murmured again, barely above a whisper, as if speaking to herself.
Vincenzo, seated in front of the operations center, didn't even turn around.
"And if you were, you'd be dead."
A chill swept through her.
"What do you mean?"
"Because you carry the Fernandes name. And because you're with me."
She looked away. Part of her knew he was right. That she was now a target, not just for being Renato's daughter, but because she was on the radar of someone bigger, lurking in the shadows.
"You have one hour to get ready. We're having dinner with Prosecutor Almeida," Vincenzo announced suddenly.