Zara didn't remember how she got back to her room.
She didn't remember Lorenzo's arms around her, or Mia's voice trying to steady her breathing, or the guards who scattered at the look on Lorenzo's face.
She remembered one thing.
One horrifying, echoing sentence:
"You weren't supposed to exist."
Her heartbeat felt like shards. Her chest felt too small. The world felt too loud.
She sat on the edge of the bed, fingers digging into the sheets as her vision blurred. The room felt like it was spinning, collapsing inward.
A knock sounded.
Soft. Almost gentle.
"Zara," Lorenzo's voice murmured from the doorway.
She didn't look up.
"Don't," she whispered, voice shaking. "Please… don't come closer."
Lorenzo froze.
Not because he didn't want to come in.
But because it was the first time she had ever told him no.
"Zara…" His voice carried something she wasn't ready to name. "You don't have to hear everything tonight."
"No," she said quickly. "No more secrets. Not now. Not tomorrow. Not after she comes for me again."
He didn't enter, but she felt him in the room his presence dark, powerful, protective.
"Then ask," he said quietly. "And I'll answer."
Zara swallowed hard.
Then lifted her head.
"What was the Renegade Project?" she whispered.
Lorenzo exhaled a breath that sounded like it hurt him to release.
"A government-funded experiment," he said.
"Shut down. Buried. Erased. My father bought the scraps of it."
"Scraps?" Zara whispered.
"Data," he clarified.
"Children. Identities. The kind of things powerful men use to build power."
Zara felt her stomach twist.
"Don't tell me "
"No." He shook his head immediately and stepped inside the room. "Zara, listen to me. My father never touched you. He never had access to you."
"Then why do I have no past?" Zara snapped, voice cracking. "Why is everything a lie? Why does Elara call me Subject 01 like I'm"
She choked.
"like I'm a lab experiment?"
Lorenzo's jaw clenched.
Then
He reached into his inner coat pocket.
Slowly.
Carefully.
Like whatever he held could end her world all over again.
He pulled out a small, aged leather envelope.
Zara stared at it.
"What is that?"
"Something my sister hid," Lorenzo said softly. "Before Elara made her disappear. I found it years later."
He stepped closer.
Holding the envelope like it was a heart.
"I never opened it," he whispered. "Because it wasn't mine."
Zara frowned. "Why give it to me?"
Lorenzo held the envelope out.
"Because your name is written on it."
Zara froze.
Ice rushed through her veins.
She took the envelope with trembling fingers.
Her name Zara was written in small, rushed handwriting on the back.
Not in Lorenzo's handwriting.
Not Mia's.
Not anyone she recognized.
She opened it.
Inside was a single photograph.
Her breath left her body in a violent rush.
It was a picture of a little girl
five or six years old
standing under a streetlight.
Staring at the camera.
No smile.
No expression.
Just dark, wide eyes.
Eyes that looked too familiar.
Zara's hands shook.
"That's not me," she whispered.
But the truth flooded her chest like something venomous.
It was her.
Or someone who looked exactly like her.
She turned the photograph over.
There was writing on the back.
One line.
One horrifying line:
SUBJECT 01 FINAL TRIAL: MEMORY EXTRACTION COMPLETE.
Zara felt the world tilt.
Memory extraction.
Final trial.
Subject 01.
Her vision blurred.
"Lorenzo…" she whispered, choking. "What does that mean? What does any of this mean?"
Lorenzo kneeled in front of her, taking her shaking hands in his.
"It means," he said quietly, "that someone wanted to erase everything you were before you became Zara."
Zara's breath caught.
"I don't even know who I was," she whispered.
Lorenzo's grip tightened.
"That's what she wants," he said. "Elara wants you lost. Confused. Broken. But I swear on my life, Zara"
He looked at her like she was both a wound and the cure for it.
"i will find the truth before she does."
Before Zara could reply, the door slammed open.
A guard stumbled in ,face pale, panting.
"Sir you need to come. Now."
Lorenzo stood instantly. "What happened?"
The guard swallowed hard.
"She left a message."
Zara's blood went cold. "Elara?"
The guard nodded.
But his voice cracked as he finished:
"Yes… and she left it carved into the front gates."
Zara and Lorenzo exchanged a look
A terrifying, sinking look.
"What did she write?" Lorenzo demanded.
The guard hesitated.
Then whispered:
"COME FIND YOUR PAST, LITTLE SUBJECT."
"I'LL BE WAITING."
Zara's heart stopped.
Because below the message…
Carved into the iron gate…
Was a symbol she had seen before.
On the necklace in the glass box.
The symbol Lorenzo's sister used as her secret signature.
A symbol Zara somehow recognized
Without knowing why.
And for the first time since she entered the De Luca estate…
Zara realized:
Elara didn't just want her dead.
She wanted her to remember.