Previously on Renzo: After Hours: The stolen reel resurfaced in Rome as part of The Moving Light, and Jules’s signature proved he was alive. But the world still doesn’t know who bankrolled Project Muse. Now, word spreads of a final recording—Afterlight—said to hold the truth that could burn reputations across Europe’s elite.
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Venice had been about memory.
Rome had been about reflection.
Afterlight would be about consequence.
Renzo, Xander, and Sebastian left the city before dawn, taking a train north through fog and winter fields. The world outside looked bleached—like overexposed film.
Sebastian leaned back against the window, eyes half closed. “Do we even know what we’re chasing anymore?”
Xander turned a camera over in his hands. “Whatever’s left of the truth.”
Renzo’s voice was low, steady. “And whoever’s still trying to bury it.”
None of them mentioned Jules aloud, but his absence rode with them like a fourth passenger.
They reached Berlin two days later—a city that understood rebuilding. Its air felt electrical, half history, half static.
Renzo had received an encrypted message before they left Italy: Afterlight stored under alias ‘Aubé’. Berlin Film Restoration Archive.
Access: name “Vale.” Code: Lumen.”
It was signed only —S.
Xander folded the paper when he read it. “Stephan’s still moving pieces.”
Sebastian gave a crooked grin. “Then let’s play along until we can end the game.”
The archive was underground—concrete, humming with machines that restored the ghosts of cinema. The attendant, a man with hands stained in developer, didn’t even ask questions when
Renzo said the codeword. He only motioned them toward a sealed vault door.
Inside, a single film canister sat beneath a hanging bulb.
Its label read: AFTERLIGHT – RVB / VALE / J.A.
Renzo lifted it gently, the metal cold. “This is it.”
Xander frowned. “If this is real, we’re holding the evidence everyone’s afraid of.”
They smuggled it back to their rented apartment overlooking Alexanderplatz. It rained that night, the city’s neon lights crawling across wet glass.
When the reel began to play, the screen filled with old footage from Project Muse—men, art, faces blurred, hands exchanging envelopes, glimpses of Marcel and Stephan in meetings. Then the frame changed.
Jules appeared, older than before, standing in a studio filled with mirrors.
He looked directly at the camera.
“If you’re watching this,” Jules said softly, “then I couldn’t stop it. The patrons wanted eternity, but they feared transparency. They thought beauty would keep them safe. It never does.”
He moved closer, expression unreadable.
“Renzo, they’ll come for you again. You became the masterpiece they couldn’t own. But art has a longer memory than fear. That’s why I left Afterlight—to remind you that truth isn’t exposure. It’s survival.”
The film cut suddenly to black. Then a second image appeared—three figures silhouetted against a wall of light. Renzo recognized their outlines instantly: himself, Xander, and Sebastian.
Sebastian whispered, “He filmed us again.”
Xander leaned forward. “No… look at the timestamp.”
The corner of the screen read: June 2026.
Renzo froze. “That’s… four months from now.”
The reel ended, leaving only the whir of machinery and the sound of rain on the windows.
They didn’t speak for a long time. Then Xander said quietly, “It’s a warning. Or a prophecy.”
Sebastian poured three glasses of whiskey and set one in front of each of them. “Then we have four months to figure out why Jules thinks we’re not finished.”
Renzo raised his glass. “And to make sure the next film we’re in is one we choose.”
Their eyes met across the table. The silence between them was the kind that carried both comfort and danger—the knowledge that their bond, whatever name it deserved, had become the story itself.
Xander reached out, fingers brushing Renzo’s wrist. “You know he’s watching again.”
Renzo’s lips curved faintly. “Let him. The light always remembers.”
Sebastian leaned back, looking at them both. “Then let’s make sure it remembers us the way we want.”
Outside, thunder rolled over Berlin, low and resonant.
The projector kept spinning even after the reel had ended, throwing pure light across their faces.
None of them moved to turn it off.
Next On Renzo: After Hours - The Archivist (PUBLISH DATE - will be February 19, 2026)
Spring arrives in Berlin, and whispers of Afterlight spread through the European art underground.
An anonymous buyer offers a fortune for the reel, claiming it proves Project Muse never ended.
But before Renzo can decide what to do with it, a new name enters the story—Elias, a young archivist who might know where Jules has gone.
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