Matteo hated the smell of crime scenes.

  Not because of blood.

  Not because of death.

  Because they always brought back the same thing.

  The part of him he’d buried.

  He stepped through the temporary perimeter and flashed his credentials without breaking stride. Floodlights cut the night into hard white squares. The air was cold enough to sting, and the building ahead looked normal from a distance, like any other forgotten facility the world would never miss.

  Up close, it looked… violated.

  “Father Mateo.”

  The voice came from his left, amused, familiar.

  Matteo stopped just long enough to look over. The operative walking toward him had a clean jacket, clean boots, and the kind of calm face that only came from seeing too much and never reacting to it. His eyes flicked across Matteo like a checklist.

  “Don’t call me that,” Matteo said.

  The man’s grin widened. “Still allergic to the title. That’s comforting.”

  Matteo exhaled through his nose. “If you called me that two years ago, I would’ve blessed you.”

  “And now?”

  “Now I’d charge you.”

  The operative chuckled and fell into step beside him. “You’re late.”

  “I was asleep,” Matteo said. “You know. Retired.”

  The operative made a dramatic show of glancing around. “Could’ve fooled me. You look exactly like a man who retired. Peaceful. Radiant.”

  Matteo gave him a look. “Why am I here?”

  “Because you’re the only one who can walk into this kind of mess and not panic, pray, or puke.”

  “I might do all three,” Matteo said.

  “Then do it in that order. We’ve got a situation.”

  They crossed the boundary line together. A few men in black uniforms moved with quiet efficiency, cataloging, photographing, bagging. No one spoke above a murmur. No one looked at Matteo too long.

  That alone told him what this was.

  Not local.

  Not normal.

  Not supposed to exist.

  The operative tapped an earpiece once, then lowered his voice. “Here’s what we have. Four bodies found in a tight formation around the relic. No obvious forced entry at first glance. Then we found the breach.”

  “Professional?” Matteo asked.

  The operative’s lips twitched. “Surgical. Whoever did it knew exactly where to cut, what cameras to avoid, and how long they had.”

  Matteo didn’t respond. His eyes stayed on the structure, on the angle of the doors, on the way the floodlights hit the ground.

  Everything in him measured the space.

  “Intruders?” Matteo asked.

  “All four,” the operative said. “Same kit. Same movement. Same discipline. They breached, got to the relic… and they died right there. Fast.”

  Matteo slowed. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “That’s why you’re here, Father.”

  Matteo stopped walking.

  The operative raised both hands like he was surrendering. “Sorry. Matteo.”

  “Keep it that way.”

  They reached the first staging area. Plastic sheeting. Evidence tables. Labeled bags. A fold-out board with photos clipped in a grid.

  Matteo’s eyes went straight to the center image.

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  Four bodies.

  A tight circle.

  Something in the middle blurred for security.

  Except the blur didn’t feel like a blur.

  It felt like an attempt to hide the shape from his brain.

  Matteo leaned closer, and his stomach tightened.

  He could almost smell it from the photo.

  Ancient paper.

  Dust.

  Oil.

  And something else beneath it.

  Something sharp.

  “Tell me about the relic,” Matteo said.

  The operative nodded toward the blurred section. “Fragment. Scroll. Found on-site during an old inventory sweep. Someone in charge labeled it as an ‘unregistered religious artifact’ and moved it to storage. Then a researcher pulled it for translation.”

  Matteo’s eyes narrowed. “And that’s when things went wrong.”

  “Tonight. Yes.”

  Matteo turned away from the board and looked down the corridor where the breach had occurred. The air changed as he stepped into the building, like crossing from weather into a sealed box.

  The lights inside were dimmer.

  The shadows were heavier.

  Matteo had learned to distrust places that held shadows too well.

  “Where is it?” Matteo asked.

  “You’ll see,” the operative said. “But before you do… there’s a detail you should know.”

  Matteo kept walking.

  The operative followed. “The intruders. We got partial footage. No faces. Gloves. Boots. The way they moved… it looked like training.”

  “Military,” Matteo said.

  “Or worse,” the operative replied. “They were efficient. No wasted motion. Like they’d run the route before.”

  Matteo stopped at the first door. The frame was slightly warped like someone had applied pressure at the exact weakest point.

  He stared at it, and the world shifted.

  Not fully.

  Just enough.

  He saw it.

  A hand in a black glove braced on the frame.

  A tool pressed in.

  A quiet crack.

  No panic.

  No rushed breathing.

  Then—

  The flash was gone.

  Matteo blinked once and stepped through like nothing happened.

  The operative watched him. “You okay?”

  “Fine,” Matteo said.

  But his voice came out colder than he intended.

  They passed another corridor. A smear on the wall. A broken light fixture. A trail that looked like someone had been dragged for half a second before being dropped.

  Matteo’s gaze locked on the smear.

  The world shifted again.

  He saw a man stumble backward, eyes wide, mouth moving.

  No sound came.

  Just the shape of words.

  Then the man’s knees hit.

  His hands tried to claw at his own throat.

  His face turned a shade too dark too fast.

  Matteo’s heart thumped once, hard.

  The vision vanished.

  He forced himself to keep walking.

  “Matteo,” the operative said quietly, “you’re doing that thing again.”

  “What thing?”

  “That stare. Like you’re listening to something none of us can hear.”

  Matteo didn’t answer.

  They reached the main room.

  Even with the lights on, it felt wrong.

  The temperature dropped as if the room held its own weather.

  In the center, the bodies were gone.

  But the shape of the moment remained.

  Tape markers on the floor showed the circle.

  Four positions.

  One center point.

  Matteo stepped toward it.

  His chest tightened.

  His skin prickled.

  He felt the old reflex, the one he hated, the one he had tried to kill after the incident.

  The urge to pray.

  He swallowed it.

  Then he saw it.

  On the floor near one of the marked positions, a small card had been placed in an evidence tent.

  A photo.

  A close-up of a forearm.

  Black ink.

  A swastika.

  Matteo stared at it too long.

  The operative spoke softly. “We found it on all four. Same tattoo. Same placement. Left inner forearm.”

  “Neo-Nazis?” Matteo asked.

  The operative’s voice turned dry. “If they were, they’re the most disciplined neo-Nazis on the planet.”

  Matteo reached for the photo, then stopped himself.

  He didn’t want to touch it.

  Not because of fear.

  Because something about it felt… intentional.

  Like a message.

  “Why would a black ops team mark themselves like that?” Matteo murmured.

  The operative looked at him. “That’s what I was hoping you’d tell me.”

  Matteo’s jaw tightened. “It’s either real affiliation, or misdirection.”

  “Or a calling card,” the operative said.

  Matteo’s eyes tracked the room again. The circle. The center.

  He could almost see the relic lying there.

  Almost see the paper.

  Almost hear—

  No.

  He shut that thought down.

  He knelt and snapped on gloves. He pulled a small kit from his bag with practiced ease. Swabs. Vials. Tweezers. A tiny portable scanner.

  He worked while he spoke.

  “Chemical exposure?” Matteo asked.

  The operative hesitated. “Maybe. There’s residue on the floor that doesn’t match any cleaning agents on record.”

  Matteo swabbed the center point.

  The swab came back with a faint discoloration.

  He didn’t like it.

  He swabbed again.

  Then a third time.

  He sealed the samples and labeled them by hand.

  The operative watched. “You’re taking a lot.”

  “I don’t trust your lab techs,” Matteo said.

  “My lab techs are excellent.”

  “Exactly,” Matteo replied. “And they still don’t know what they’re looking at.”

  The operative gave a low laugh. “So you’re taking it.”

  Matteo stood. “Yes.”

  The operative’s eyebrows lifted. “You want to transport the scroll fragment?”

  Matteo didn’t look away from the center of the circle. “I want it under my control until we know what it is.”

  “That’s not protocol.”

  Matteo finally looked at him. “Neither is swastika-marked professionals breaking into a secured site, dropping dead in under a minute, and leaving behind the only thing they came for.”

  The operative held his gaze.

  Then he nodded, slow.

  “I’ll make the call,” he said.

  Matteo glanced back at the floor one last time.

  For a split second, the room wasn’t empty.

  For a split second, he saw four men standing around the scroll.

  He saw one of them reach down.

  And when his fingers touched the ancient paper—

  The man’s mouth opened.

  And the words that came out weren’t his.

  They were not English.

  Not Latin.

  Not anything Matteo could name.

  They sounded older than language.

  Then the vision snapped away like a cord being yanked.

  Matteo’s breath caught.

  He steadied himself without letting the operative see it.

  “Matteo?” the operative asked.

  Matteo picked up his kit, calm on the outside, storm underneath.

  “Get me the scroll,” he said. “And clear me a lab.”

  The operative hesitated. “You sure you want to be this close to it?”

  Matteo’s eyes hardened.

  He thought of the incident.

  The one that cracked his faith clean in half.

  The one that made him retire.

  The one he pretended didn’t haunt him every time he closed his eyes.

  “I didn’t come back to be safe,” Matteo said.

  Then he walked deeper into the scene, like a man stepping into a memory he didn’t own.