Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 31 - Chapitre 40

Serena:Morning came slowly.Not golden or soft like I wanted it to—but gray, bruised, and humming with unsaid things.No one said a word as we got dressed. There was no need. The silence was a language now—one we all spoke fluently.I pulled on the clothes Matteo laid out for me—black leggings, one of Nico’s hoodies, socks that didn’t match. It was my armor, not bulletproof like theirs, but it was familiar.They were already moving around the safehouse. Matteo was speaking low into a burner phone by the window, Luca pacing, sharp and silent, and Nico by the kitchen, pouring coffee like it might hold back the inevitable.No one had slept much the night before.I watched them for a while, pretending I wasn’t the weight in the room. I pretended I didn’t notice how their eyes kept flicking toward me—like they were checking I was still here. Still real.Finally, Nico broke the silence. “There’s a meeting.”Luca looked up. “Where?”“Old butcher’s shop off 9th. Backroom’s secure. Matteo say

SerenaWhen I woke, the air didn’t smell like peace.It smelled like ash and sweat and sex—like the remnants of something burned down just to see what would rise from the soot. The light coming through the reinforced shutters was gray and splintered, cutting across the bed in long stripes, like bars on a cell.I didn’t feel caged.I felt… undone. Reassembled.And still breaking.The blanket barely covered me. My body ached in places that hadn't hurt in a long time. Not from violence. From being touched like I belonged to something that wasn’t pain.Their warmth was still in the sheets, but they were gone.Nico’s hoodie was on the floor, inside out. Luca’s watch lay on the nightstand, ticking in a calm rhythm that felt completely at odds with the storm I knew was coming. Matteo’s cigarette scent still lingered in the air, sharp and familiar.I sat up slowly, pulling the blanket around me.My thighs trembled a little when I stood. I ignored it. I moved toward the window instead, half-na

Voronov didn’t flinch when I leveled the gun at his face.He didn’t beg. Didn’t blink. He just smiled—like a man who’d seen the end of the world and decided it wasn’t so bad after all.“The phoenix,” he repeated softly. “You’re even more beautiful up close.”Nico stepped up beside me, gun raised. “Say that again, and I’ll redecorate the walls with your teeth.”Voronov chuckled, a sound like brittle paper. “Still protective, I see. They taught you loyalty well.”I ignored that. “You know who I am?”“Of course. You’re the first. The experiment that failed because you were never meant to break.”“I didn’t break,” I said flatly. “I woke up.”He tilted his head, his expression caught between admiration and clinical detachment. “No. You resisted. That’s different. You’re still fractured. But in the right hands, you could still be... completed.”Nico moved fast.Before I could even blink, he had the old man by the collar, yanked halfway across the table. “The only thing that’s going to be co

45:04:37The fire alarm didn’t trip until the third body hit the floor.By then, the guards posted at Evelyn’s Berlin satellite had already failed.One throat slit on the stairwell.One spine snapped in the hallway.One heart punctured at the base of the control room ladder, still clutching a security badge that would never beep again.No gunfire.No alarms.Just silence.Then: screaming.By the time the rest of the team mobilized, it was already too late.Ilya moved through the carnage like a shadow stitched in human skin.She wore a black parka and no mask.She didn’t need one.The cameras had all been looped—perfectly, precisely, for thirteen minutes.Long enough.Too long.She reached the upper mezzanine, where a cracked-glass pane overlooked the main floor of the safehouse. Below, technicians scrambled. Evelyn’s people. Civilians.Non-combatants.Ilya could’ve taken the shot.One round. Center mass. Instant chaos.But she didn’t.She turned left—toward the east wing.Toward the r

Matteo-43:37:50Berlin Compound – North WingI didn’t follow them at first.I watched the door close behind her—the girl who wasn’t supposed to come back—and for a full thirty seconds, I didn’t move.Then I did.The hall was too quiet now. No barking orders, no thudding boots. Just the hum of cold fluorescent light and the sound of a fuse burning in my chest.They were in the debriefing room.Luca. Matteo. And you.Not a word spoken when I walked in. Just the shift of weight, the electric pulse of tension.Ilya was in the center of the room, flanked by two guards and lit like she was standing in a confession booth with the wrong god listening.She didn’t look at me.Good.I wasn’t ready to look at her either.Because it wasn’t about her.It never was.You were at the edge of the table, fingers curled against the wood like you were holding something back. Luca leaned in the corner, arms crossed, but his jaw said everything. And Matteo?Matteo was watching you.Not her.I shut the door