Semua Bab MY CRUEL PROTECTOR : Bab 31 - Bab 34

POV RUBYThe Tuscan sun was a golden weight against the terracotta tiles of our villa, a heat so pure it felt like it could cauterize the wounds of the past six months. We had chosen a life of quiet anonymity, tucked away in the rolling hills of Val d’Orcia, where the only sounds were the rustle of olive groves and the distant chime of church bells. To the world, Gianna and Alessandro Rossi were just another wealthy couple enjoying an early retirement. To us, we were two survivors of a war that the world didn't even know had been fought.The Ascendancy had been decapitated. The data I had broadcast from the London cathedral had acted like a digital virus, dismantling Julian Vane’s empire from the inside out. Governments had fallen, CEOs had disappeared into night-black vans, and the Syndicate had become a ghost story.Nevan—now Alessandro—was currently in the garden, his shirt discarded as he worked the stubborn earth. The scars on his back were silver tracks in the sunlight, a map

POV RUBYThe Mediterranean was not the shimmering turquoise of the postcards. At three hundred feet below the surface, it was a world of crushing indigo and suffocating silence.We were cramped inside a "Mantis" submersible, a pressurized glass sphere barely large enough for two people. Nevan sat behind me, his knees tucked against my back, his hands resting on the manual override controls. The only light came from the violet-hued glow of the sub’s dashboard and the faint, rhythmic pulse of the scarab key, which I had slotted into the vessel’s navigation port."Tell me again why we’re diving into a graveyard," Nevan’s voice crackled through the internal comms. Even at the bottom of the ocean, his voice was a grounded, masculine comfort."The Library of Alexandria didn't burn to the ground, Nevan," I whispered, my eyes fixed on the sonar screen. "The physical books did. But the knowledge—the lineage of the Architects—was moved. My mother’s notes said Thorne built a facility within the