Page 16 of Take Me Darkly

“High-tier contractor,” Zeke revealed coldly. “Ballistics indicate a Dragunov SVD—Russian military spec, set up for long-range precision. Clean extraction, zero casing residue left behind. Whoever hired him paid top-tier black-market money.”

I watched Serena’s hands clench into tight fists on the table, her knuckles turning white.

“I’m an archaeologist,” she whispered, her voice trembling with rising fury. “I translate dead languages and dig up broken pottery. Who would use military resources to eradicate my family?”

“We’re getting to that,” Zeke assured her gently before pulling another glossy photograph from the file. It displayed a close-up of a distinct, stylized marking of a twisting serpent.

“This mark keeps appearing,” Zeke explained. “Forensics found it freshly carved into an old stone wall near the sniper’s nest. Local authorities noted similar graffiti near your mother’s property line. And Anton saw a variation of it painted near the front threshold as the house went up in flames.

Serena leaned over the table, her eyes widening as she stared at the symbol. “My father... he drew this exact mark repeatedly in the margins of his journals, too.”

“I don’t think that’s a coincidence,” I murmured, my hand sliding over the small of her back, offering my heat, my strength.

“Not by a mile,” Zeke agreed, turning a page in his folder. Then he paused, his eyes meeting Serena’s with heavy sympathy. “Which brings us to the medical examiner’s review. Hale managed to quietly purchase your father’s complete medical records from the clinic in Siena. He had a top forensic toxicologist review his final months. We suspected, but now it’s confirmed. Dr. Carlo Martinelli didn’t die of a sudden, degenerative organ failure. His systemic symptoms match a textbook case of chronic, low-dose arsenic poisoning.”

The words seemed to freeze the air in the room.

I felt the sudden, violent tremor that ran through Serena’s body. I had brought up the possibility of poisoning when we were still in Italy, just seconds before her mother’s house was put to the torch. But hearing it confirmed by cold, hard forensic science was a brutal resurrection of her grief.

“No,” Serena breathed, shaking her head in denial. “No... he was ill. The doctors in Florence said it was an autoimmune collapse⁠—”

“The doctors misdiagnosed a slow, methodical homicide,” Zeke corrected with flat, uncompromising precision. “Arsenic mimics severe autoimmune distress and organ failure. Given the timeline and the steady escalation of his symptoms, someone was feeding him small doses over a period of six months.”

I shifted closer to her, my palm pressing flat against her back, anchoring her as she began to shake.

“Who would do that to my father?” she choked out, tears of rage glistening in her eyes. “He was a historian. He lived in libraries and dusty ruins, studying ancient civilizations! He didn’t have enemies. He couldn’t be a part of…whatever this is.”

“I don’t think he knew he had enemies. There’s a difference,” Zeke said carefully. “This is where things start to get a little murky. We think your father may have stumbled onto something lethal. His final research initiative was focused on locating the lost tomb of Mark Antony and Cleopatra, correct?”

“Yes,” Serena whispered. “It was his life’s obsession. He believed he’d decoded a series of forgotten Roman directional markers across central Italy.”

“He did decode a system, but it wasn’t what he thought it was,” Zeke said, spreading out several photocopied pages of ancient inscriptions and research notes. “We pulled what we could of your father’s research from the library archives at Sapienza University of Rome, where he meticulously documented a specific network of Roman tablet rubbings. He thought they were historical directional indicators leading to a tomb. But when Hale ran those rubbings through an NSA code analyst, something else showed. It’s a modern, highly sophisticated encryption system.”

“To communicate what?” I asked, struggling to follow along.

“Drug transit routes, weapon drop locations, and international money-laundering channels,” Zeke revealed. “Someone repurposed ancient Roman historical markers throughout Italy to pass offline, untraceable operational codes. Your father didn’t just find a clue to an ancient tomb—he unknowingly mapped out an active, global cartel network.”

Serena stood abruptly, her chair scraping against the floor. “That’s insane. My father’s research was about Cleopatra and Mark Antony. He was looking for a tomb, not—not criminal codes.”

“Look at the decoded manifest, Serena,” Zeke urged quietly, pushing a page toward her. “Your father thought he was translating ancient royal lineage markers. Your father didn’t upload all his research to the university in Rome, so there are pieces missing. But when you apply the modern shift-cipher, those exact symbols spell out shipping manifests from the Port of Naples to New York.”

My eyes scanned the top of the dossier, landing on a bold, typed header.

“The Serpent’s Disciples,” I read aloud, the words tasting like copper on my tongue. “What the hell are they?”

“An elite, deeply entrenched organized crime syndicate,” Zeke answered grimly. “They operate between Italy, Eastern Europe, and the US, using historical preservation foundations and academic grants as fronts for narcotics, arms trafficking, and high-end racketeering. They’ve infiltrated academic boards, port authorities, and government agencies. The FBI has been trying to pierce their upper echelon for five years with zero success.”

Serena sank back into her chair, her face deathly pale. “You’re saying... my father was murdered because he accidentally decoded their shipping routes?”

“Exactly,” Zeke said. “When the Disciple’s realized Carlo Martinelli was documenting their entire operational grid in his research, they couldn’t just shoot him—it would draw federal eyes to his active dig sites. So, they poisoned him slowly, making it look like a natural illness.”

I wrapped my hand around Serena’s good shoulder, feeling the tight, agonized tension humming through her skin.

“What proof do you have?” she asked.

“Right now, it’s only theory. But that brings us to the final portion of Hale’s report,” Zeke said, his tone darkening as he pulled a final photograph from the bottom of the pile. “It involves your ex-boyfriend, Cade Rosenberg.”

I felt Serena stiffen beneath my hand, every muscle going rigid.