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The room held its breath.

Colonel Vance’s fingers tightened around the tarnished pendant as if it were something alive—something dangerous. His eyes never left Maya’s face.

“Where did you get this?” he asked, his voice low but shaking in a way no one had ever heard before.

Maya swallowed, still holding her crying baby close. “I… I’ve had it my whole life. They said it was found with me when I was little. I don’t know anything else.”

A ripple of murmurs spread through the crowd.

Victoria scoffed, trying to regain control. “This is ridiculous. It’s just a piece of junk—”

“It is not junk.”

The sharpness in Vance’s voice cut her off instantly.

He stepped closer to Maya, his expression softening, but his eyes filled with something far heavier—recognition… and guilt.

“This insignia…” he whispered, brushing the crest again. “It belongs to a classified military unit. One that was wiped out over twenty years ago.”

The room froze.

“A unit?” someone whispered.

Vance nodded slowly, his gaze still locked on Maya. “A covert intelligence division. Their records were erased. Their families… disappeared.”

Maya’s heart pounded. “What does that have to do with me?”

Vance exhaled deeply, as if carrying the weight of decades.

“Because,” he said, his voice cracking for the first time, “the last report from that unit mentioned a missing child. A two-year-old girl… who vanished the night the operation collapsed.”

Silence.

Victoria’s face drained of color.