The fire was still raging when Grace vanished into the woods behind the monastery ruins.
The wind carried embers like dying prayers.
She didn't look back.
She never did.
But someone was watching.
---
Her.
The assassin with the silver braid.
She moved without sound, her boots not even rustling leaves.
Her gun was silent.
Her breath steady.
They called her Salomé—but she hadn't heard that name in years.
---
In a makeshift safehouse on the outskirts of Rome, Grace stitched the wound from the sniper's first shot.
She didn't flinch.
Didn't curse.
She was too used to pain.
Luciano barged in, jacket soaked, fury in his voice.
> "What the hell happened?! You disappeared for eight hours."
> "Tomaso's gone. We were seconds too late. Someone knew I was coming."
> "You think it's me?" he snapped.
She didn't answer.
Silence was her answer.
---
Luciano pulled something from his coat—a photo.
Grainy.
Long-range.
Of her.
Taken on the monastery roof.
Before the sniper fired.
> "They've got eyes everywhere," he said. "We're not ahead anymore. We're dancing to their tune."
> "Then let's burn the stage."
---
That night, Salomé reported to Augusto Nero.
> "She's better than I expected," she said.
"Smart. Fast. Trained."
> "And?" Augusto asked.
> "She doesn't know who her mother really was… or what she left behind."
Augusto's lips curved.
> "Let her chase truth. It will break her faster than bullets."
---
Elsewhere, in a sealed lab hidden beneath the Vatican, a metal door slid open.
Inside, a chamber of cryo tanks hummed.
And in the center:
A child.
Unmoving.
Eyes closed.
But breathing.
On the glass: a label etched in Latin.
> "Thorne."
---