I walked toward the pedestal, my heels clicking like a countdown on the metal floor. The room was so dark it felt infinite, the only thing existing in the universe being the terminal and the man watching me from the shadows behind.
"The brass key, Jessy," Yuri said, his voice dropping to a low, urgent rasp. "The digital match is only half. The hardware has a physical interlock. Without it, the system will purge the data as soon as the names begin to render."
I reached into the hidden fold of my dress. My fingers brushed the cold, ridged metal of the key, but they also felt the plastic casing of Viktor's burner phone. My mother's life was a coin being tossed in the air, and I was the one who had to decide which side it landed on.
I pulled out the key. It caught the blue light of the terminal, glinting like a shard of bone.
"Viktor said you'd kill me once this was over," I said, my voice surprisingly steady. "He said you need a ghost, not a fiancé."
Yuri didn't move. He stood at the edge of the light, his hands at his sides. "Viktor wants to rule the ashes of my empire. I want to build something that doesn't require a war to sustain it. If I wanted you dead, I wouldn't have brought you into the center of my world. I would have left you in the wreckage."
I looked at the terminal. There was a small, ancient-looking keyhole beneath the sleek touch-interface. A bridge between the old world and the new. My father's world and Yuri's.
I slid the key in. It turned with a heavy, satisfying thunk.
Connection Stabilized. Decrypting Ledger...
Names began to scroll across the screen. Thousands of them. High-ranking officials, rival kingpins, and then—the Volkov family. I saw Mikhail's name. I saw Viktor's. And then, at the very bottom of the primary list of beneficiaries, I saw it: Yuri Volkov.
But there was a note next to his name, written in my father's messy, digital shorthand: The Only Way Out.
"He trusted you," I whispered, staring at the screen. "My father. He didn't just hide from you. He was working with you."
"Your father knew the UNI was compromised," Yuri said, stepping into the light beside me. He didn't look at the names. He looked at me. "He knew that if the Ledger stayed in the wrong hands, you'd never be safe. We planned the 'disappearance' together, Jessy. But the hit-and-run... that wasn't us. That was Mikhail trying to skip the line and take the throne early."
Suddenly, the red alarm lights began to pulse. The warehouse above us groaned as the sound of muffled explosions filtered down through the concrete.
"They're here," Yuri said, pulling a secondary weapon from his holster.
The screen flashed a final message: Decryption Complete. Transferring to Private Server.
"Jessy, listen to me," Yuri grabbed my shoulders, his eyes fierce. "The data is moving to a location only you can access now. You are the Ledger. You are the empire. Miller is gone, the guards are compromised, and we have three minutes before the purge-gas fills this chamber."
He pressed a small device into my hand—a remote detonator. "This is for the villa. It's not a kill-switch for your mother, Jessy. It's for the men Viktor sent there. I've already moved her. She's on a boat heading for international waters. Press this, and you take out Viktor's leverage forever."
I looked at the button. I looked at the man who had lied to me, broken me, and potentially saved me.
"Why should I believe you now?"
"Because," Yuri said, as the heavy doors of the sanctuary began to buckle under the pressure of Mikhail's breaching charges. "I'm the only one standing between you and the men who don't care if the key survives the lock."