The sound of the plate I'd yanked from my mother's hand still echoed in my ears as I pressed against the cold stone walls of the West Tower.
"Lara, please—"
"Please?" My voice came out shrill, beyond my control. "My entire life has been a lie and you're asking me to please?"
Aylin Özkan—or so I'd known her—slowly removed the mask. In the moonlight, her face was a familiar stranger. The same features, the same green eyes, but the darkness within them had never been this intense.
"Did you learn from your father that I'm the Collector?" she asked, a strange softness in her voice.
"My father is dead." The words left my mouth like shattered glass. "Did you have him killed? Because he knew?"
My mother closed her eyes, took a deep breath. "I tried to save your father."
*Lies. All lies.*
But a corner of my heart, that small, foolish corner, wanted to believe her.
"What about Cem Kara then?" His name left a bitter taste on my tongue. "You were smiling in those academy photos. Were you two together?"
"We were together." My mother walked to the window, looked out at the Bosphorus. "Until I truly knew him. He was born to be used, Lara. Everyone was a tool to him. Me, you, everyone at this academy."
"Me?" Something warm spread through my chest. Fear, anger, or something else—I couldn't distinguish.
"I tried to keep you away from him." When she turned, her eyes were wet. "When I learned you'd enrolled in the academy... God, Lara. Why did you come here?"
"Because you kept me away from here? You taught me art, taught me forgery, then prevented me from applying to the best academy!" My voice was rising, echoing off the tower's stone walls. "What did you expect?"
Footsteps. On the stairs. Approaching.
My mother frantically put on her mask. "Go. Leave now."
"No, I—"
"GO!" She pushed me behind an old daybed, pulled a dusty cover over me. "Don't make a sound. No matter what."
In the darkness, beneath the dusty fabric, I waited, holding my breath.
The door creaked open.
"Aylin." Cem's voice. Soft, almost tender. "Are we still playing these games?"
*No. No, no, no.*
"I found the Codex," my mother said, her voice muffled through the mask. "Our collaboration ends here."
Cem's laughter made my skin crawl. "Our collaboration? Darling, we were never partners. You were my... project."
Footsteps. Coming closer. I froze beneath the cover.
"Give me the Codex," Cem said. "And maybe I'll leave your daughter alone."
My heart stopped.
"Lara has nothing to do with this."
"Doesn't she?" There was a smile in his voice. "Then why did you share the final copy of my work with her? Why did you teach her to break into my studio? You know very well how to present your daughter to me, Aylin."
"YOU—"
A collision sound. Metal clanging. Then a groan.
I barely held myself back from throwing off the cover, rushing out, getting between them. But my mother's words circled in my mind: *No matter what.*
"I found the Codex but haven't decoded it yet," my mother spoke breathlessly. "Give me time. A week."
"Three days." Cem's footsteps retreated. "And bring Lara to the Süleymaniye auction tomorrow. She needs to meet the new buyers. Continue the family legacy, right?"
"Don't involve her—"
"Involve her?" Cem's voice was ice-sharp. "She's been involved from the beginning. Just like you. Özkan women... you're all born thieves. Isn't that a blessing?"
The door closed. Long silence. Then my mother's sobs.
I threw off the cover and burst out. My mother was leaning against the wall, pressing her hand to her shoulder, blood seeping between her fingers.
"Mom!"
"Go," she whispered. "Please, Lara. Go and never come back."
"You're bleeding—"
"Just a scratch." She looked at me, tears in her eyes behind the mask. "But next time he'll kill. When Cem gets what he knows, he kills everyone."
I reached out my hand, then stopped. Could I touch this woman? This stranger?
"What is the Codex really?"
"Not the location of lost works. A list of buyers." My mother coughed. "The world's wealthiest, most dangerous collectors. A record of which piece we stole for each one. If Cem gets that list..."
"He'll blackmail them all."
"Or sell them all. To the highest bidder." She tried to stand, stumbled. "You go. I—"
Footsteps again. This time running. Multiple people.
"Security," my mother whispered. "Cem triggered the alarm. Go, Lara!"
I ran to the window. Fire escape. Three stories high.
"I can't jump—"
"You will jump!" My mother pushed me to the window. "Tomorrow night, 11 o'clock, meet me at the old grove. I'll tell you everything. But first—"
The door was ripped from its hinges.
Two security guards burst in, followed by...
Cem.
His eyes moved between my mother and me. A smile slowly spread across his face.
"Lara," he said, sweet poison in his voice. "What a surprise."
I was going to jump. Jump from the window. But then my mother lunged forward, grabbed one of the security guards' guns, aimed it directly at me.
"Hands up!" she shouted, her masked voice unrecognizable. "Nobody move!"
*Mom... what are you doing?*
Cem's smile widened. I finally understood.
She wasn't saving me.
She was making me look like a stranger.
"Thief!" one of the security guards shouted.
And my mother, under my gaze, pulled the trigger.
The window glass beside me shattered.
"RUN!" my mother screamed, no longer disguising her voice. "LARA, RUN!"
I jumped onto the fire escape, the metal steps swaying beneath my feet, but something—someone—grabbed my wrist.
I looked up.
Cem was looking at me, his fingers like a cuff tightening around my wrist.
"The auction is tomorrow night, darling," he whispered. "You're the masterpiece."