Chapter 77

Alessandro

It came in a black envelope. There was no stamp or seal, just a smudged insignia I hadn’t seen in nearly a decade—a faded serpent devouring its own tail. I could never forget that insignia, the man who had saved me, but I dreaded what was in there. I found it sitting on my desk just past midnight, as though it had simply grown from the shadows.

Matteo swore no one had come through the front gate, but that didn’t matter. This kind of thing always found its way in—through cracks in the walls, fractures in the floor, and even ghosts in the hallways. The past had never really left this house. It only waited for the right moment to knock.

I slit the edge of the envelope open, slowly, deliberately, and inside was a single flash drive. No note. I stared at it for a long time before plugging it in.

The screen blinked twice, then opened a link to a site. I used a secure server Matteo and I rarely used to check through the file, and it began to downlo