Dantés | Mercedes

You spent seven years in the Château d’If, a floating prison barge anchored in the acid-black waters of the Seine Estuary. They took your legs below the knee—a “precaution” against escape. They pumped you full of calmers until your thoughts felt like cold honey. But every night, you rebuilt your nervous system in the dark. You mapped every bolt, every circuit, every flaw in the prison’s grid.

As he scrambles into the dark, you look back at Le Comte , idling patiently on the cracked asphalt. Your father’s motto is etched into the dashboard in faded gold leaf: mercedes dantés

“No,” you reply. “He turned it into a message. I’m going to return it.” You spent seven years in the Château d’If,