“Tabarnak, I knew I recognized his name.”
Scarlett cocked her eyebrow at me.
“When Mario took us to the sewers the first time, he mentioned a park donor he’d taken on a tour last year.” I looked at Brooke, who’d returned to scrolling through Martinelli’s information she’d found. “A tour of the drainage system.”
“Sounds like he’s our man,” Scarlett said.
Brie continued with her briefing. “Three years ago, his daughter died from a rare, aggressive disease that attacked her nervous system and internal organs. According to some news articles I accessed, conventional treatments failed her.”
Brooke hummed aloud, still scrolling on her phone. “He’s poured multiple millions into regenerative medicine research. Fringe stuff. And it’s only sped up in the past three years.”
“Wait,” I said, “he’s spent moreafterhis daughter passed?”
“I’m skimming a paper that was published through one of the labs he funded.” She nodded as she read. “It’s about cellular regeneration, and there’s a lot of crossover with the Greek Fire components.”
I wanted to wrap an arm around her, show her how much I appreciated her. I settled for: “If he’s spending more since her death, is it altruistic, or?—”
Brooke’s head snapped up. “It’s genetic. He’s got it, too.”
“So he’s even more desperate for a cure toall diseases,” I said. That was the lie Fenix used to recruit people. The what-if question that made good people commit evil acts. “He can’t take the money with him, so he’s spending it all to find immortality.”
Brooke didn’t react, other than to hold my gaze longer than she would have an hour ago.
“The timing matches,” Brie said. “He started backing fringe researchers about two years ago, but six months ago, he withdrew from public life almost entirely. His research foundation cited personal matters, but financial records show massive transfers to shell companies I found mentioned in the Fenix files.”
Brooke finally tucked her phone away. “The regenerative aspect of Greek Fire is real, but it’s unstable. Deadly in its current form. If Martinelli believes he can refine it into a cure…”
“He’s willing to risk thousands of lives on the chance it might save him,” Scarlett finished.
“It still doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “Why use it on the people at the amphitheater if he’s trying to cure himself?”
Brooke’s hands rose in front of her, and her eyes darted back and forth, as though she were doing mental calculations. I’d seen it before, when she was making modifications to the monitoring equipment or figuring out which building to visit in a village. “What if it’s not that Greek Fire’s unstable, but there’s something specific that causes it to work? Something genetic no one’s been able to find.”
I took a half-step toward her as the idea formed in my brain alongside hers. “They’re test subjects.”
“Exactly! Apply the powder form to injure them, then the liquid, with the hopes thatsomeoneexhibits healing.”
The room grew quiet as Fenix’s real plan sank in. They’d been lying to everyone they brought into their horrific cause. But who werethey? Had Martinelli even told Noah and Enzo his real plan? From the things Noah had said to Jayce, he sounded like he’d believed it all.
Unless he’d recently learned the truth, and that was why he’d told us their plans?
Brooke continued, “If anyone in the amphitheater heals, Martinelli has his lab rat. He can find out why it worked for them, then reverse-engineer it to work on himself.”
“Well, shit.” Emmett sank into one of the chairs.
I studied Martinelli’s face on the screen. Behind the refined exterior, there was a dying man who would sacrifice anyone and everything to save himself.
Dangerous men, I understood.
Men with nothing to lose were far worse.
“That explains why Massimo’s arrest didn’t hamper Fenix,” Emmett added.
“We also found Trident Regenerative Solutions—Martinelli’s research front—has been operating at a loss for over a year and a half,” Brie continued. “The last approved clinical trial failed three months ago.”
“Creating desperation,” I said.
“We’ve identified what we believe is Martinelli’s lab from supply chain records.” Brie pulled up a map of the Naples area, zooming in on a location about twenty kilometers east of Pompeii. “The facility is registered as a pharmaceutical research center, but we traced unusual chemical purchases through the shell companies in the Mnemis data, all leading back here.”
