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CHAPTER 45
publish date:
2025-12-19 14:00:02The operation took six hours.
They started early in the morning.
Althea stood beneath the surgical lights without shifting her weight, not letting the tremor of fatigue reach her hands. Time folded inward inside the operating room that is reduced to the rhythm of her breathing, the quiet hum of machines.
The patient she is operating on arrived under diplomatic secrecy with men escorting him every step of the way. Men who never removed their earpieces. He is a high-ranking
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Althea looked at her son.Nicholas had instinctively identified the pressure funneling structure surrounding the Core.The Gate intentionally forced movement inward.But somewhere inside, there had to be a bypass route.Nico pointed suddenly toward a rough sketch near the edge of the page.“You go around here instead, Mama.”Althea’s breath caught.Her son had just drawn something dangerously close to one of the fragmented movement corridors Alessandro buried decades ago even without ever seeing it.She hid her reaction instantly, thanking her years of surgical composure.But internally, shock crashed violently through her.Nicholas looked worried suddenly.“Is it wrong, Mama?” He asked.Althea immediately shook her head.“No.” Her voice came softer than intended. “It’s not wrong. I say, it’s very smart.”Nicholas brightened instantly.Then immediately frowned again at the paper.“But I don’t know where this connects.” He told her heavily.Althea slowly reached for the drawing, studyi
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The library had become Nicholas’ territory.Over the last several days, the old room slowly transformed around him.Papers now occupied one entire side of the long oak table. Colored pencils sat scattered beside old maps. Several books remained open in untidy piles near the floor where Nicholas had apparently abandoned them mid-thought.And at the center of it all is Nico himself.He is curled sideways in one of the large chairs with his sock-covered feet tucked beneath him while he continued sketching rapidly across another sheet of paper, the tip of his tongue sticking out from time to time when he concentrates too much.Althea watched her son quietly from the opposite side of the room, not interrupting him.She just continued to observed him because she now understood what August had been trying to teach her all along.“You did not suppress minds like Nicholas’.” August’s words came back to her mind. “You guide him, redirect if you must. Nurture him carefully enough that intelligen
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Blackstone had finally quieted for the night despite the war already beginning.There are guards moving through the halls, distant radios crackling softly somewhere beyond the lower corridors, tactical operators rotating shifts near the perimeter.But compared to the chaos of the last few days, tonight felt almost still.Dominic couldn’t sleep again with too many things occupying his mind.The Axis Gate.Luca.The convergence points.Nicholas.Althea.And strangely, his mother.The meeting at the monastery had unsettled him in ways he still hadn’t fully processed. For the first time in his life, he had seen Seraphina not merely as his mother. But as a woman who once had another future.Another life.Another love.Dominic moved quietly through the lower halls before eventually stepping outside toward the gardens.Cold evening air brushed against his skin immediately.The moonlight washed over the estate grounds softly, silver light touching the stone pathways and dark roses lining the
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Matteo remained seated long after Aurelio left, the silence inside his room settled thickly around him once more with only the faint sound of the old clock ticking by the fireplace interrupting the atmosphere.Outside, the Valtieri estate still moved like a living machine preparing for war.But Matteo barely noticed it anymore as his attention remained fixed on the file in front of him.Dominic Valtieri.The folder looked deceptively ordinary.Black leather with minimal marking and no official seal.Yet inside the file rested years of observation on his nephew’s behavioral analysis, movement predictions and psychological breakdowns.Not because Matteo feared Dominic. But because Matteo studied people the same way others studied battlefields.Dominic had always fascinated him ever since he was a child.Slowly, Matteo opened the folder again.The first page contained a photograph taken years ago.Dominic younger, perhaps around twenty-one.Standing beside his grandfather, Riccardo durin
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Matteo remained alone inside his private study long after the hall downstairs emptied.The estate had quieted somewhat, but Matteo knew that it’s not the entirety of it.War never truly slept anymore as footsteps could still be heard occasionally through corridors. The guards rotated positions outside and communications within the old walls of the Valtieri estate remained active.But inside Matteo’s room, silence ruled completely.He stood near the large window overlooking the dark gardens below, one hand resting lightly against a crystal glass untouched beside him.His reflection stared back from the glass.He looked calm, collected and most of all, invisible.Exactly how he preferred it.The files spread across his desk remained open behind him.Not original Axis Gate documents.Not engineering plans.Because Matteo had not created the Gate.The Axis Gate existed long before any of them.Older than governments.Older than the wars that merely repurposed it.Centuries-old tunnels and
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The drive back to the Valtieri estate was silent.The city lights blurred beyond the tinted windows while Aurelio sat across from his father inside the armored vehicle, one hand lazily spinning a knife between his fingers.Watching.Thinking.Luca remained quiet beside the window for most of the ride, his expression unreadable beneath the passing shadows.But Aurelio knew him well enough to recognize the shift.Dominic had unsettled him, not through emotions but strategically.And that alone made the night dangerous.“He touched a nerve.” Aurelio commented, finally breaking the silence.Luca didn’t look at him.“No.”“He absolutely did, dad.” He pointed out.Luca’s eyes remained fixed outside. “Dominic finally stopped reacting like a wounded child.” He answered solemnly. “And started thinking.”That made Aurelio still slightly because in Luca’s world, thinking mattered more than violence always. The vehicle finally turned through the gates of the old Valtieri estate shortly before two
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Althea stood before the mirror, staring at herself, unmoving, while the room buzzed quietly around her.She gently patted the deep midnight blue gown that is structured at the shoulders with a flowing hem. A gown that Helena had bought for her for the gala that August Devereaux had organized for he
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PRESENT DAYDominic finally opened his eyes again and realized how much the apartment still owned him until the door clicked shut behind him upon arriving.The sound echoed soft, final against walls that had once known laughter, murmured confessions, and the quiet rustle of shared m
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The Valtieri estate was already buzzing when Dominic arrived, men in dark suits lining the hallway as though preparing for war.His footsteps echoed, steady and composed. However, each echo reminded him of a truth he’d tried to ignore for years.The Valtieri family never summo
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To Dominic’s joy, their relationship had blossomed into three wonderful years.As expected, their relationship wasn’t always butterflies and rainbows. There will be arguments that would flare between them. Sometimes over small, almost ridiculous things, sometimes over matters that felt too large fo
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