The room had no windows.
That was intentional.
Buried two levels beneath the Presidential Estate, the Financial Recovery Unit occupied a section of the building few people even knew existed. Access required three separate security clearances, biometric verification, and a rotating encryption code that changed every six hours.
There was nothing luxurious about it.
Steel cabinets. Encrypted servers.
Stacks of classified government files.
And at the center of a large table...
the leather-bound ledger recovered from beneath Parliament.
For several moments, nobody touched it.
The silence carried weight.
Magnus finally broke it. "I've spent three nights staring at this thing."
He rubbed his tired eyes.
"I've concluded it was written by someone who enjoyed making other people's lives miserable."
A faint smile appeared on Elena's face.
Even Sebastian managed one.
Only Dorian remained quiet.
His eyes never left the ledger.
