---
Location: Rome – Moretti Intelligence Bunker
Allegra slammed the dossier onto the table.
"Interpol's heat map just shifted. Overnight. Four cities lit up—Berlin, Zurich, Marseille, and Palermo."
Isabella sat at the head of the long table, flanked by Nico, Gianna, Costanzo, and Allegra. The room was cold steel and colder truth.
"We knew they'd probe the edges," Isabella said. "Not set the world on fire."
Gianna tapped the map. "They're using ghost networks. Smart ones. Bank transfers routed through collapsed charities. Dead-drop couriers. No chatter."
"Mercenaries?" Nico asked.
"No," Allegra said, sliding another file forward. "Operators. Deep pockets. They're building pressure on all fronts—legal, digital, personal."
She opened a satellite photo. "This is The Black Seraphim. Ex-Russian, Israeli, French. They don't operate unless the payoff is apocalyptic."
Isabella's eyes narrowed. "Who's funding them?"
Allegra hesitated.
Then: "The same offshore entity that bought the Velvet Sky dossier."
Silence.
Then Costanzo muttered, "So it begins."
---
Location: Vatican Archives – A Hidden Letter
That same night, a hand opened a vault beneath Saint Peter's Basilica.
A priest—young, nervous—placed a sealed envelope on the table before a cardinal.
"The name 'Moretti' keeps surfacing," he whispered.
The cardinal nodded. "Keep watching."
The envelope bore two initials:
L. M.
Isabella's mother.
---
Location: Palermo – An Old Friend's Return
Domenico stood at the shoreline, watching fishermen pull in their nets.
He'd left after Ricci's fall—needed space from the blood, from Isabella, from who he had become.
Now, Palermo burned with whispers. Foreign men buying silence. Old ganglords rising from the sea like ghosts.
A voice behind him.
"You picked the wrong time to go soft."
He turned—gun raised—until he saw the woman step from the shadows.
Lucia Moretti.
Not a ghost.
Not dead.
Very much alive.
---
Final Scene – Rome, Rooftop
Isabella stared out at her city. She lit a cigarette she'd sworn she quit. Below, the streets pulsed with life, not knowing the war brewing above them.
Nico joined her, sliding a folder across the stone railing.
Inside: a name. An address.
A photo of a man she hadn't seen in a decade.
The Architect had made his first real move.
And it was personal.
Isabella whispered, "Time to stop waiting."
Then she turned to Nico.
"Burn the quiet. Let them hear us coming."