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Chapter 144
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2025-07-22 05:44:00
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Chains of Velvet, Heart of Fire Chapter 149
The night around Palazzo Marchesi was hushed, but not calm. There was a kind of stillness in the air that seemed too calculated, as if the earth was holding its breath in anticipation. Inside the estate, the war room remained dimly lit, glowing faintly from a map that had long stopped being about terrain and had become a web of loyalty, lies, and blood.Lucien stood by the window, his eyes on the dark garden below. Behind him, Seraphina flipped through the coded pages from Valeria’s journal. Her fingers paused on a familiar sketch, one that reminded her not of her past, but of Lucio’s.He had drawn the same symbol two weeks ago. A pattern he claimed came from a dream. They hadn’t known then it was also the crest of an extinct Codex sect.Seraphina exhaled slowly. “They’re trying again. I feel it.”Lucien didn’t answer. His stillness was agreement enough.Just then, the door opened. Elian stepped in, phone in hand. His expression was controlled, but the urgency in his stride betrayed h
Chains of Velvet, Heart of Fire Chapter 148
The morning sun did little to warm the frost sitting over Palazzo Marchesi. Light crept through the stained-glass windows of the war room where the core of Lucien’s inner circle gathered around the heavy oak table. Each face bore exhaustion, but none allowed it to sway their resolve. In the center of the table, the items retrieved from Valeria’s crypt lay beneath a protective glass case: the Anima Prima chip, the coded journal, and the silver key.Seraphina stood at the head of the table. Her shoulders were squared, eyes colder than winter’s bite. Gone was the woman trying to stitch herself together in secret. This was the commander she had trained herself to become, molded in silence and sharpened by betrayal.“We strike now,” she said, voice flat.Matteo exchanged a glance with Vincenzo. “Geneva or Trieste?”“Both,” Seraphina replied. “Simultaneously. Elian already secured dual strike teams from Interpol. One for the Geneva data vault, another for the Albani estate in Trieste.”Luci
Chains of Velvet, Heart of Fire Chapter 147
The Palazzo Marchesi had weathered more storms than the family that ruled it. Tonight, it braced for another one, quiet, methodical, deadly.At the edge of the estate’s reinforced strategy room, Seraphina stood still as Elian unrolled the coded missive left by the courier.We still write the final song.Vincenzo leaned over the table, frowning. “The handwriting was printed using a custom fountain nib. Expensive. European.”Lucien nodded slowly. “But the message is American-coded syntax. ‘We still write.’ Not ‘We will.’ It’s a signal.”“They’re not threatening us,” Elian said, voice cool. “They’re declaring they’ve started.”The tension in the room spread like fire. Matteo exchanged a look with Anton, whose right hand hovered close to the holster on his side, despite his lingering injuries. It had only been two weeks since he’d regained full strength. Not that he would’ve stayed behind either way.Seraphina’s fingers tapped the table, her gaze never leaving the words.“They think I’ll
Chains of Velvet, Heart of Fire Chapter 146
Silence filled the private jet on its return flight to Sicily. The clouds outside were streaks of ash and violet, dragging the horizon westward as evening folded the sky in upon itself. Seraphina sat by the window, her hands clasped tightly on her lap, her reflection barely visible in the glass. The pendant Lucien had recovered from Silvano’s vault hung around her neck now, cool against her skin.Lucien hadn’t asked why she took it. He didn’t need to. She had her reasons, quiet, precise reasons that didn’t need validation. She had decided that a long time ago.In the seat beside her, Lucien studied the fragment of the map left behind after Leticia Albani had escaped. The word Anima still burned across the header like an unfinished prophecy. Whatever it meant, it didn’t point toward a war.It pointed toward a design.“I think she left it on purpose,” Seraphina said suddenly.Lucien looked up. “Leticia?”She nodded. “That map fragment. She could have taken it.”“Why would she leave it?”
Chains of Velvet, Heart of Fire Chapter 145
The storm had broken over the Ligurian coast by the time Lucien and Seraphina touched down at the private airstrip. The microchip inside Silvano Etra’s pendant had taken them far from Sicily, beyond the known properties of the Marchesi family, and far from anything tied to the Red Chamber’s documented sites. The coordinates pointed inland, to the countryside northeast of Genoa, to a derelict vineyard that once belonged to a man named Matteo Gallini.Gallini had died more than twenty-five years earlier. On paper, he was a winemaker. But through layers of shell corporations and falsified ownership documents, they discovered he was also a silent partner in a pharmaceutical firm that had funded the Codex's embryonic research, Project Solace, before it had a name.By dawn, they were inside the crumbling remains of the Gallini estate, a once-grand villa now wrapped in ivy and long abandoned. The earth was soft beneath their boots. Nature had begun reclaiming the house, but the stones beneat
Chains of Velvet, Heart of Fire Chapter 144
The mountains had swallowed the monastery whole. At least, that was how it appeared as Lucien and Seraphina stood before the ruined façade clinging to the granite slope. Time and earth had reclaimed the once-grand structure. The cross atop its tower leaned sideways. Vines wrapped the outer stones like a burial shroud. What remained was silent and forgotten, just as Silvano Etra had likely intended.Inside the broken entrance, the air was dry and laced with dust. Old pews, long splintered and gray, lay scattered. Icons stripped from the walls left behind only nail holes and faint outlines. This was no longer a place of worship. It was a grave of secrets.Seraphina moved ahead, flashlight beam cutting through the gloom. Her breath clouded in the cool air. Behind her, Lucien’s steps echoed faintly as he examined the crumbled edges of the walls.“It’s exactly as the map described,” Seraphina said.Lucien nodded, kneeling beside an old altar base. “It hasn’t been touched in decades.”Benea
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