Chapter 25: The Emerging Past
The digital clock on the nightstand showed eight-thirty in the evening.
Darkness had completely swallowed Paris, leaving only the glimmer of streetlights filtering through the heavy penthouse curtains. Inside the spacious master bedroom, the silence was suffocating, broken only by the faint hum of the air conditioner. Agatha blinked slowly, her eyelids feeling like lead. The effect of the high-dose sedative Xavier had injected had completely paralyzed her nerves for over twelve hours.
Agatha tried to move her body, but a surge of excruciating pain immediately struck from two different directions. Her left shoulder throbbed in sync with her heartbeat, while a sharp, burning sensation spread across her back. The long scratches from rolling across the harbor asphalt last night stung every time her skin brushed against the smooth silk sheets.
She realized the blanket covering her had slipped, revealing her body clad only in her underwear. White bandages wrapped from her shoulder to her back, covering the stitches Xavier had performed with his own hands. Agatha stared at the dark ceiling, trying to gather the scattered pieces of her memory amidst the piercing pain.
The bedroom door opened softly. Xavier stepped in from the living area, the space where the penthouse balcony was located. The scent of tobacco and the cold night air trailed in with him. The man looked at the now-awake Agatha with a flat expression that was difficult to read, yet there was a flicker of anxiety he kept neatly hidden behind his mask of arrogance.
"Awake at last. I thought I would be clearing out your corpse tonight," Xavier’s baritone voice broke the silence, heavy and calm.
Agatha made no effort to cover her exposed self. Instead, she propped her body up with her healthy right arm, staring at Xavier with cold, demanding hazel eyes. "Where is my weapon, Xavier?"
"Stored away. I do not want you dying foolishly because your stitches tore while you were trying to attack me in a half-conscious state," Xavier replied casually as he placed a tray containing a glass of water and a thick brown folder on the bed. "Drink this, then read this before you start a riot."
Agatha gulped the water until the glass was empty, feeling her dry throat find some relief. She then snatched the folder in front of her roughly. However, when she saw the first page containing data on Silas Elara, she immediately flicked the paper onto the marble floor with a gesture of disgust.
"Silas Elara?" Agatha laughed cynically, her voice raspy. "I lived with him for fifteen years, Xavier. I know he is a human trafficker who picked me up in Zurich after the Saint Rionsa orphanage fire. That old fool thought I was just a pretty girl who could be worth a lot if polished into an asset he could use at will. He never even knew who I truly was behind this mask of a submissive girl. Do you think I risked my life last night just for that bastard’s biography?"
Agatha glared at Xavier, her breath coming in short gasps as she held back her rage. "You said you had information that was worth it. If it is only about Silas, you have wasted my time and my blood for nothing."
Xavier did not argue. He pulled a photograph from the deepest slot of the folder. It was an old, blurry photo, badly damaged around the edges. It showed the silhouette of a woman standing in front of the iron gates of an orphanage, placing a small bundle down. Her face was not visible at all, obscured by the coarse grain of the photo and the shadows of the trees.
"Just a piece of blurry trash?" Agatha hissed, her fingers tracing the yellowed surface of the photo with desperation. "Who is this woman? Where is she now?"
"Calm down, Agatha," Xavier said, his voice softening, a tone he rarely used. He sat on the edge of the bed, causing the mattress to sink slightly under his weight. "That photo was taken from an old surveillance camera near the orphanage, twenty-three years ago. That was the day you were left there."
"Who is she, Xavier? You have thousands of spies, do not tell me you cannot find a single name with that power you brag about," Agatha demanded, her eyes beginning to well up with frustration, though she kept her face hardened.
"I am still looking for her," Xavier admitted honestly, his eyes staring deep into Agatha’s hazel orbs. "The data system in Zurich was wiped very clean right after that fire. It is as if some powerful hand wanted to erase your tracks forever. The rose emblem on your dagger... I have never seen an engraving like that in any archive. It is not a common item, and it is not the emblem of any mafia clan I am familiar with."
Agatha crumpled the photo slightly. "So you know nothing? You let me dream of answers, yet you yourself are at a dead end?"
Xavier reached for Agatha’s hand, gripping it firmly as if trying to channel strength into her. "Listen to me. The attack at the harbor last night proved one thing. It was not just Petrov moving, but another shadow following him. You are not just a target. Those snipers were not Petrov’s men. They are afraid of you. Someone out there might know who you are and they want you to remain a ghost that was never supposed to reappear. I will not stop until I find out who gave you that dagger."
Agatha pulled her hand from Xavier’s grip roughly. She rose from the bed with stiff movements. The stinging pain in her back made her jaw muscles tighten, yet she refused to show weakness. She walked toward the chair, grabbing Xavier’s plain black t-shirt that was draped there. She put it on quickly, the cool silk fabric covering her skin down to her mid-thigh, providing some protection for her wounds.
Agatha stood tall, combing through her messy black hair with her fingers. Her face no longer showed desperation, but had returned to a cold, assassin’s mode. If Xavier could not give her answers, then she would find them herself, in her own way.
"So," Agatha said coldly, her voice as sharp as a blade. "Someone tried to erase my tracks twenty-three years ago, and the same person tried to end my life last night. Whoever they are, they made a grave mistake by letting me keep breathing."
Xavier stood up, looking at his wife with a thin smirk of admiration. "That is my girl. Do not worry about the data, let my spies work behind the scenes. For now, your focus is to heal your body and stay alive."
Suddenly, a faint whirring sound came from the direction of the living room, the balcony area outside the bedroom. Xavier moved with lightning speed, grabbing Agatha by the waist and pulling her away from the line of sight of the open bedroom door, just as a muffled explosion echoed from the private lift in the penthouse lobby.
"Frans, status!" Xavier commanded into the intercom on his wrist.
"Shadow Unit has entered through the outer balcony and the emergency door, Boss! They are moving very silently, they look like high-level professionals!" Frans’s voice crackled amidst the sound of gunfire beginning to break out on the lower floor.
Agatha crawled toward the vanity drawer where Xavier kept his weapons. She pulled her rose dagger from it, feeling the thorn engravings bite into her palm, a sensation that now felt familiar.
"The pistol, Xavier," Agatha hissed without looking back, her eyes fixed on the dark bedroom door. "Give it to me now. I need a release for my stress right now."
Xavier handed a Glock 19 to his wife. "Do not let your wounds open again, Agatha. I do not want to be stitching your back for the second time in a day."
"Worry about your own head, Xavier," Agatha replied coldly. She stood tall, the oversized black shirt fluttering as she moved with alertness.
Out there, behind the closed bedroom door, the ghosts of Agatha’s past were crawling closer, and this time, Agatha would not run. She would welcome them gladly.