Chapter 138: Prometheus Laboratories

He’d seen terrible things in his years with Dimitri. Had done terrible things himself.

But this....

This was something else entirely.

This was systematic. Industrial. Evil distilled into profit margins and production quotas.

He forced himself to keep reading.

Because buried in those files, he’d found something that connected to Dimitri’s mother.

Marco pulled up the timeline he’d been building.

August 2010: Claire Valentino kidnapped by The Covenant, injected with virus, died six days later.

He cross-referenced with Prometheus’s transaction records from that time period.

And there it was.

Transaction Record — July 2010

From: Prometheus Laboratories

To: The Covenant (shell company: Meridian Holdings)

Item: Research collaboration agreement, viral development project

Value: $12 million USD

Notes: Joint partnership — Prometheus provides manufacturing facilities, The Covenant provides research subjects and field deployment capability

Marco sat very still, reading the document three times to make sure he understood.

Prometheus and The Covenant had been partners.

Not enemies. Not rivals.

Partners.

Working together on viral weapons development.

He clicked through more files, tracing the relationship back.

The partnership had started in 2008, the same year Prometheus was founded.

For two years, they’d worked together. Sharing facilities. Sharing research. Sharing profits from selling biological weapons to the highest bidder.

Antonio’s company providing the labs and manufacturing capability.

The Covenant providing test subjects and deployment networks.

A perfect symbiotic relationship.

Until something had gone wrong.

Marco found the communications from August 2010.

It was terse and hostile. The partnership collapsing in real time.

August 3, 2010 — Email fragment (recovered from deleted files):

"Your betrayal will not stand. You think you can cut us out? We built this together. We know where the bodies are buried, If you proceed with terminating our agreement, there will be consequences."

August 7, 2010 — Response:

"The partnership is over. Remove your equipment from our facilities within 48 hours or I will have it destroyed. Any further contact will be considered a hostile act."

Antonio’s voice. Marco recognized the cold, clinical tone even in text.

August 10, 2010 — Final message:

"So be it. You want war? We’ll give you war. And we’ll make sure you understand exactly what you’ve lost."

Three days later, Claire Valentino was kidnapped.

Six days after that, she was dead.

Killed by a virus that The Covenant had access to because of their partnership with Prometheus.

A virus that Antonio’s own company had helped develop.

Marco felt something cold settle in his chest.

Antonio hadn’t killed Claire directly.

Hadn’t ordered her kidnapping.

Hadn’t injected her himself.

But his choices had led to her death.

His business dealings. His partnerships with monsters. His decision to work with The Covenant on biological weapons.

And when that partnership had collapsed, when Antonio had tried to cut them out....they’d retaliated by using his own research to murder his wife.

Marco pulled up more recent files.

The Covenant — Current Operations:

Still active. Still operational. Still one of the largest criminal organizations in Europe.

And still in the business of human experimentation.

The intelligence reports Marco had accessed painted a horrifying picture.

The Covenant operated research facilities across Eastern Europe. Kidnapped people for test subjects. Developed biological and chemical weapons. Sold them to terrorist organizations, rogue states, anyone with enough money.

They were responsible for at least three major outbreaks in the past decade.

* A cholera epidemic in Syria that killed thousands.

* A hemorrhagic fever in Sudan that wiped out entire villages.

* A respiratory virus in Myanmar that the WHO still couldn’t fully contain.

All traced back....quietly, through classified channels to The Covenant’s weapons development program.

And they were still growing.

Still experimenting.

Still killing.

Because no one could touch them.

They had too much money. Too much power. Too many connections to governments and intelligence agencies who used them when convenient and looked the other way the rest of the time.

Marco rubbed his eyes, trying to process the scope of what he’d uncovered.

Antonio owned Prometheus.

Prometheus had partnered with The Covenant.

The Covenant had killed Claire using research from that partnership.

The Covenant was still out there, still operating, still killing people with biological weapons.

And the only person with connections deep enough to access The Covenant’s organization, to get close enough for revenge.....was Antonio Valentino.

Which meant....

Marco’s phone buzzed.

His lead analyst, working from a secure location across the city.

"Boss, I found something else. About Prometheus."

"What?"

"They have a secondary facility. Offshore. It’s not listed in any of the corporate records. Not on any map. Completely off the radar."

Marco sat up straighter. "Where?"

"Coordinates put it somewhere in the South Pacific. Small island, privately owned, no official name. I’m calling it Phantom Base in my notes because it literally doesn’t exist on paper."

"What do they do there?"

"I don’t know. The facility isn’t mentioned in any of the production records. No inventory logs. No employee rosters. Nothing." The analyst paused. "But there are financial transfers. Massive ones. Tens of millions every quarter going to maintain this facility that officially doesn’t exist."

"How massive?"

"Last quarter alone? Forty million dollars. For a facility that produces nothing, employs no one, and exists nowhere."

Marco felt ice slide down his spine.

"Which means whatever they’re doing there is so illegal, so dangerous, that even Antonio’s encrypted records don’t mention it."

"Exactly. And boss....the transfers increased significantly after 2010. After the partnership with The Covenant collapsed."

After Claire died.

"Send me everything," Marco said. "Every coordinate. Every financial record. Every piece of intelligence you have on that facility."

"Sending now."

Marco hung up, stared at his screens as new files populated.

Phantom Base.

An offshore facility that didn’t exist.

Where Antonio Valentino spent forty million dollars a quarter doing something he couldn’t even document in his own encrypted files.

Marco didn’t want to imagine what that something was.

But he had to know.

Had to give Dimitri the complete picture.

Because this wasn’t just about Isabella’s medication anymore.

This wasn’t just about Antonio’s illegal pharmaceutical empire.

This was about Dimitri’s mother.

About the virus that killed her and the people involved.