The coast of Sicily was a jagged silhouette of black volcanic rock against a sky that had turned a bruised, electric purple. A sirocco wind was screaming across the Mediterranean, whipping the waves into white-capped furies that crashed against the ruins of the old refinery. This was not a place of luxury or corporate polish; it was an industrial skeleton, a rusted cathedral of iron and secrets where the Loom had first begun its work in the shadows of the post-war era.
Riana stood on the deck of the small fishing trawler they had used to slip past the coastal patrols. She was wearing tactical black, the golden Spider Silk gown packed away in a reinforced case—not as a dress, but as the final piece of the decryption puzzle. Beside her, Albert checked the action on his sidearm, his face a m
