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CHAPTER 76: The Night Before The End

Author: B. Nelson
last update publish date: 2026-04-30 20:41:56

The house was completely quiet by ten.

Nico had gone to his room. Elena had turned off the kitchen lights and wished us goodnight with the particular look she gave when she understood something was happening that needed space around it. The guards were on their positions outside and the gates were locked and the estate had settled into its nighttime breathing and it was just the two of us in the library with the lamp on low and the fountain running outside and tomorrow sitting in the room with
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    Dante stood in that room for exactly thirty seconds.Not over Viktor specifically. Just standing in the space that smelled like cigarette smoke and thirty years of inherited purpose while the coalition held every position outside and the Tuesday evening moved past the compound windows completely indifferent to what had just happened inside.He took his phone from his jacket and called the estate.I picked up before the first ring finished.I had been sitting at the kitchen table with the phone face up in front of me for two hours and Elena had been beside me and Nico in the corridor and the radio going in and out and the evening turning fully dark outside the window without any of us noticing it happen.The phone lit up and I had it to my ear before the sound finished.One moment of silence.Then his voice."It's done," he said.Two words and I pressed my free hand flat against the kitchen table and felt the wood solid and real under my palm and breathed slowly and completely for the

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