CHECKMATE, DARLING
Behind us, the central floor completely gave way, plunging the High Table’s mahogany council table, their server monitors, and six robed council members into the roaring fire of the basement below!
We reached the edge of the shattered window frame.
Fifty feet below us, through the roaring wind and driving rain, Yuri Levin’s high-speed stealth zodiac was bouncing on the dark, foaming waves of the Adriatic Sea, its powerful spotlight shining directly up at us.
"JUMP!" Daniel roared.
We launched ourselves out of the shattered window into the pitch-black night.
For three agonizing seconds, we fell through the icy air, the wind screaming in our ears, the burning silhouette of the Palazzo della No