Marko smiled, despite the danger. "You always were impatient, Viktor. But the map isn't on the canvas. It's in the pigment." The mystery had only just begun.

Marko watched from the wings. He noticed the bidder’s hand; it bore a unique scar—the mark of "The Ghost," a thief who had vanished a decade ago after a botched heist.

In the dimly lit auction house of “Antique Haven” in Belgrade, the air smelled of old paper and secrets. Marko, a seasoned art restorer with a reputation for spotting fakes, received an anonymous tip: ( Najbolja Ponuda ) was about to be made on a painting that didn't exist in any catalog .

He realized the "anonymous tip" was a test. The Ghost wasn't after the map; he was after the man who could decode it. As Marko turned to leave, he felt the cold press of a barrel against the back of his neck.

The item was a tattered canvas titled The Veiled Truth . It looked like a mediocre 19th-century landscape, but the tipster claimed it hid a map to the "Black Archive"—a legendary collection of stolen historical documents.