All Chapters of The Glass Rose : Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

Alessia’s POVThe roar was so loud that it didn't even sound like an explosion anymore but rather like the world itself was being torn in half, and I felt the floor beneath me drop away for a split second before I was slammed into a cold marble pillar. The shockwave knocked the air out of my lungs and left my ears ringing with a high-pitched whistle that made me feel dizzy and sick, and as I tried to open my eyes I could only see thick clouds of gray dust and the orange glow of fires starting to eat through the tapestries. The server towers had collapsed into the lake with a sound of grinding metal and the smell of ozone was so thick I could taste it on my tongue, and I started crawling across the debris-strewn floor while I called out for Lucien because the last thing I saw was him standing right next to the cooling core when the pressure blew."Lucien, answer me right now or I’m going to lose my mind in this dark, and you better be breathing because I can't drag you out of here if

Rafael’s POVThe water of Lake Como was so cold that it felt like thousands of tiny needles were stabbing into my skin at once, and I clung to a jagged piece of a wooden dock that had been blown into the channel while I watched the orange flames of the palace reflect off the surface of the dark waves. I could hear the distant throb of high-powered engines getting closer and I tried to duck my head beneath the water to avoid being spotted by the searchlights, but a bright white beam swept over my position and stayed there until a large black ribs boat pulled up alongside me. Two men in tactical gear that didn't have any official markings reached down and grabbed me by the collar of my tactical vest and they hauled me over the side like a dead fish, and I collapsed onto the deck while I coughed up a mixture of lake water and fuel."He's still breathing, though I don't know why we bothered to fish him out when we could have just let the current take him down to the dam," one of the men

Lucien’s POVThe sun was hitting my face through the cracked window of the farmhouse and the light felt like a physical weight pressing against my eyes, and when I tried to sit up a sharp spike of pain shot through my back that made my vision go black for several seconds. I reached out for the side of the cot but my hand only found a cold pillow and a folded piece of paper that was tucked under the edge of the fabric, and as I unfolded it with shaking fingers I saw Alessia’s quick and jagged handwriting telling me that she had gone to Carrara to get Matteo back on her own. I let out a curse that made my throat burn and I tried to stand up but my legs felt like they were made of water, and I knew she was walking into a slaughterhouse without a plan or enough backup to get past the front gate. I dragged myself across the floor toward the kitchen table because I needed to find a bottle of water or some leftover bread to get some sugar into my blood, and I was just about to reach for a

Lucien’s POVThe sky over the marble mountains was a bruised purple color as the sun started to come up, and I leaned heavily against the side of the stolen car while Nico used a pair of binoculars to look down into the massive white pit of the quarry. We could hear the rhythmic thud of helicopter rotors in the distance and then the air was suddenly filled with the sight of black parachutes blossoming over the center of the facility, and I knew that the Legacy Council wasn't playing games anymore because they were dropping a full mercenary team right onto the Architects' front door.The automated turrets on the facility’s roof began to spin and spit out lines of tracers that lit up the dust like fireflies, and the sound of the heavy machine guns echoing off the marble walls was so loud that it felt like it was vibrating inside my own chest."They’re going to turn that whole research floor into a graveyard before we even get to the entrance, so we need to move now or Alessia is going

Rafael’s POVThe air in the decontamination chamber was getting thinner by the second and the sound of the emergency pumps was a low and rhythmic thrumming that felt like it was vibrating inside my own skull, and I looked at Elena who was standing there with that cold and steady grip on her pistol while the marble dust settled on her hair like ash. My side was burning where the bullet had grazed me and every breath I took felt like I was swallowing glass, but as I looked at Alessia and the way she was shielding Matteo with her own body I couldn't help but think about Isabella and how I had failed her just as badly as I was failing them now. I had spent years thinking I was a soldier for the Romano sisters because I was in love with Isabella and I believed her when she told me we were changing the world, but standing in this white-tiled box I could see that I was just a tool they used until the edges got too dull to cut anything useful."You really think you’re going to walk out of h