00:00Adrian, get to the holding facility right now, Marcus had said.
00:05Something's happened to Marguerite.
00:07They arrived within 20 minutes.
00:09Adrian, Marcus and Edmund pushing through a facility, already swarming with alarmed staff.
00:16The night supervisor met them at the entrance, pale and shaken.
00:21We found the guard station empty, he said.
00:24The cell door is open.
00:26There's no sign of a struggle, no alarm triggered.
00:30Nothing forced.
00:31Edmund was already past him, running down the corridor toward his mother's cell.
00:36He stopped in the doorway and stared at the empty room.
00:39The narrow bed was neatly made.
00:42A single folded sheet of paper rested on the pillow.
00:45His hands shook as he unfolded it.
00:48The note was written in Marguerite's precise, unhurried handwriting,
00:52but it was shorter than anything she had ever left them.
00:56Edmund, I did not leave willingly, and I did not leave in fear.
01:01Someone I trusted a very long time ago has come to warn me of something I should have seen coming.
01:07Do not follow me.
01:09I will be at the hearing in the morning, exactly as I promised.
01:12That doesn't sound like a kidnapping, Marcus said slowly, reading over Edmund's shoulder.
01:18It doesn't sound like an escape either, Adrian said.
01:22She wants the harshest sentence.
01:24She'd never run.
01:26One.
01:27Then who did she leave with?
01:28Edmund asked, voice cracking.
01:31Who does my mother trust enough to walk out of a crown cell without an alarm?
01:36One.
01:36Marcus was studying the cell door's lock mechanism.
01:40Whoever it was didn't force this.
01:42They used a legitimate palace access card, one that was never reported stolen.
01:48Someone with real clearance, or someone who once had it.
01:51The facility's technicians restored the corrupted camera feed within the hour.
01:56The footage was grainy, but it showed the unidentified guard clearly enough
02:00as he approached Marguerite's cell, spoke to her quietly through the bars, and opened the door.
02:07Marguerite did not flinch or reach for an alarm.
02:10She stood, said something to him, and for a long moment simply looked at his face.
02:15Oh, or, then she walked out beside him.
02:18Freeze that frame, Marcus said sharply.
02:21The image resolved on the guard's face as he glanced toward a camera he hadn't quite noticed.
02:25He was a man in his fifties, grey at the temples, with a tired, careful expression.
02:33Adrian's blood ran cold.
02:35He had seen that face before.
02:37In a faded photograph, Maya had shown him a week earlier,
02:41standing beside a much younger Edmund Hale, outside an old shipping office.
02:46That's Daniel Reyes, Adrian whispered, Maya's father.
02:50They found Maya awake in the palace guest wing, sitting beside Tommy's bed while he slept,
02:56a cup of tea going cold in her hands.
02:59Adrian sat down across from her and told her everything, gently and without hedging.
03:04He watched the colour drain from her face as he described the footage.
03:08My father, Maya said, alive, walking around in a crown facility,
03:14and my mother sent me a note every year saying he was gone.
03:18Your mother said, he sent money anonymously for twenty years.
03:22Adrian said, he has been watching over you the entire time, Maya.
03:27From a distance, but watching.
03:29That doesn't excuse leaving, Maya said, her voice shaking with twenty-three years of buried anger.
03:36He left a three-year-old and a mother with nothing,
03:39and now he shows up to rescue the woman who ran this entire scheme.
03:43I don't know why he took her, Adrian said honestly,
03:47but I don't think he did her for the reasons we assume.
03:50Marcus's remaining contacts combed the capital through the night,
03:54but Daniel Reyes had spent two decades avoiding exactly this kind of attention.
03:59There were no traceable accounts,
04:01no credit card trails,
04:03no registered addresses,
04:05and Ifolme stirred awake near dawn,
04:07rubbing his eyes,
04:08and asked a question that changed everything.
04:12Maya, did Dad ever tell you about the fishing cabin?
04:15Maya went completely still.
04:17What fishing cabin?
04:19Mom told me once,
04:20when I was little and sick,
04:21Tommy said sleepily.
04:23She said Dad had a cabin somewhere in the northern hills,
04:26near a lake,
04:27where he used to take her before you were born.
04:29She said he called it
04:30the only place in the world
04:32nobody could find him.
04:35Marcus was already pulling up property records for the northern hills,
04:40cross-referencing the surname Asterisk Reyes,
04:43asterisk against every registered structure
04:45within a hundred miles of the capital.
04:48There's a parcel,
04:49he said quietly,
04:51registered under a variation of his mother's maiden name.
04:54It's never been flagged,
04:56because no one thought to look.
04:58They reached the northern hills at first light,
05:00Marcus driving,
05:01Adrian and Maya in the back seat,
05:02Edmund following in a second car.
05:04The lake was still and gray beneath a thin morning mist,
05:06and the cabin sat alone at the end of a gravel track,
05:09smoke rising faintly from its chimney.
05:11Maya stepped out of the car slowly,
05:13the whole body rigid.
05:15The cabin door opened before she reached the porch.
05:19Daniel Reyes stood in the doorway,
05:21older than the faded photograph,
05:23his shoulders heavier,
05:24his eyes exactly the same ones
05:26Maya saw in the mirror every morning.
05:29Maya,
05:29he said,
05:30and his voice broke on her name.
05:32You've grown up.
05:34Where is she?
05:35Maya asked,
05:36her own voice,
05:37flat and hard.
05:39Marguerite,
05:40where is she?
05:41Tool stowed.
05:42Safe,
05:43Daniel said.
05:44I promise you that.
05:45She's inside,
05:47having breakfast.
05:48She asked me to bring her here,
05:49so she could hear something before her hearing.
05:52Something I've been carrying for 23 years.
05:54Inside the cabin,
05:56Marguerite sat calmly at a small wooden table with a cup of coffee,
06:01looking almost peaceful for the first time since anyone had known her.
06:06Forgive the theatrics, she said as they entered.
06:09Daniel came to me last night with news that couldn't wait until morning.
06:13I asked him to tell you himself.
06:16Daniel sat down heavily across from Maya.
06:18Twenty-three years ago,
06:20when your mother and I were happy,
06:22and you were three years old,
06:24I discovered the falsified shipping manifests.
06:26I went to Edmund Hale,
06:28who was then a young compliance officer I trusted,
06:31and he told me it was too dangerous to go to the authorities.
06:34Mom already told me that part,
06:37Maya said.
06:38What she never knew,
06:39Daniel said,
06:40is that Edmund wasn't the person who warned me.
06:43It was his mother,
06:44working through him.
06:46Marguerite recognized the fraud for what it was,
06:49and she recognized that whoever was behind it
06:52wouldn't hesitate to silence me.
06:54She arranged for me to disappear before anyone could find me.
06:58Maya turned slowly toward Marguerite.
07:01You protected my father,
07:03portoed Marguerite said.
07:05On quote on.
07:06It was the only good thing I managed to do in those early years,
07:10and I've regretted how much it cost your family ever since.
07:13There's a reason I brought her here,
07:16Daniel said.
07:17Someone has been hunting me for 23 years.
07:20Maya.
07:21Not Lawrence Ashworth.
07:23Not Bertrand.
07:24The person who actually built the shipping fraud,
07:27who used the Ashworth family as a front,
07:30and Bertrand as a convenient tool.
07:32Who?
07:33Adrian asked sharply.
07:35Someone who has watched this entire crisis from the shadows.
07:39Marguerite said.
07:40Someone who allowed Lawrence to fall,
07:42allowed Bertrand to expose himself,
07:45and allowed all of us to believe
07:46we'd finally reached the bottom of it.
07:49Last night I discovered they'd learned where I was hiding,
07:52Daniel said.
07:53That they planned to silence me and Marguerite together
07:56before her hearing,
07:57so neither of us could testify about who really controls those manifests.
08:02Marcus, standing near the window,
08:04suddenly went rigid.
08:05Just one.
08:06Adrian, he said quietly.
08:08Don't look now.
08:09Someone's coming up the gravel track.
08:11Two cars.
08:12No lights.
08:13Daniel was on his feet instantly,
08:16moving toward a locked cabinet in the corner.
08:18They found us faster than I expected.
08:20I told her they'd need at least another hour.
08:23Who are they?
08:24Maya demanded,
08:26standing beside her father,
08:27without seeming to realize she'd moved.
08:30Daniel pulled a worn pistol from the cabinet
08:32and checked it with the practice calm of a man
08:35who had spent 23 years preparing for exactly this morning.
08:38The person who sent them,
08:40he said,
08:42is someone you already know,
08:43Maya.
08:44Someone who has been sitting closer to your life
08:46than any of us ever imagined.
08:49On A outside,
08:50car doors opened.
08:52From the lead vehicle stepped a figure,
08:54Maya recognized instantly,
08:56and her breath left her body.
08:58No,
08:59she whispered.
09:00That's not possible.
09:01But,
09:02coming up in episode 37,
09:04the shadow above everyone,
09:06the true architect of the 20-year shipping fraud
09:08finally steps into the light,
09:10and Maya learns just how close to her own life
09:13the enemy has been standing all along.
