On the monitors in the dark, silent study, Dominic Moretti leaned forward until his face was inches from the glowing screens.

Two blinks.

For twenty-four months, teams of world-renowned neurologists, expensive private consultants, and high-priced specialists had tested, prodded, and scanned Mateo’s brain. They had given long, complicated medical lectures filled with clinical jargon, all agreeing on one depressing certainty: Mateo was trapped behind a wall of locked-in syndrome, conscious perhaps, but functionally unreachable.

Yet a thirty-two-year-old housekeeper with flour on her sleeve had bypassed all of it simply by treating him like a human being.

On the screen, Evelyn dropped her dusting cloth. Her soft, round face transformed from casual indifference into a look of fierce, laser-focused concentration.

“Okay,” Evelyn whispered, leaning her elbows on the armrest of Mateo’s wheelchair, close enough that her auburn curls brushed the edge of the blanket. “Let’s test this. Blink once for yes. Twice for no. Understand?”

Blink.

One crisp, deliberate motion.

Evelyn let out a breath that sounded like a mixture of a laugh and a sob. “All right. Does your head hurt?”

Blink, blink. (No.)

“Are you in pain?”

Blink, blink. (No.)

“Are you hungry?”

Blink, blink. (No.)

Evelyn paused, her brow furrowing slightly as she searched for the right question. Then her eyes darkened, and her voice dropped to a low, barely audible timbre that barely carried through the hidden mic.

“Is it about the security leaks?”

Dominic’s heart seized in his chest.

On the screen, Mateo’s eyes widened.

Blink.

One sharp, definitive nod of his eyelids. Yes.

“Do you know who is selling information to Roland Blackwood?” Evelyn asked, her voice steady, entirely devoid of the fear that should have gripped any ordinary person in the Moretti estate.

Before Mateo could respond with another blink, a heavy thud echoed down the hallway outside his bedroom.

Evelyn snapped upright, instantly stepping away from the chair and picking up her dustpan just as the door clicked open.

A nurse walked in, carrying a tray of evening medication. Evelyn offered a polite, ordinary smile, mumbled something about finishing the dusting, and hurried out of the room.

In the study, Dominic Moretti sat back in his leather chair. The blood roaring in his ears drowned out the hum of the computers.

Blackwood.

The name tasted like ash.

For two years, Dominic had torn the city apart looking for the mole within his inner circle. He had tortured informants, raided warehouses, and executed suspected traitors.

And the whole time, his paralyzed brother had known who it was.

Worse than that... Evelyn Parker knew too.

And looking back at her employment history—her mysterious four-year gap, her sudden appearance in his house, the way she hadn't flinched when he threatened her—Dominic realized something terrifying.