Rome in the winter was a city of long shadows and cold marble, a labyrinth of history that had seen empires rise and fall long before the Loom was ever a whisper in a boardroom. Albert and Riana arrived not as billionaires, but as ghosts. They had ditched the snow-scouts at a safe house in Bolzano and taken a series of local trains, blending into the sea of tourists and commuters.
They were staying in a small, nondescript apartment in Trastevere, far from the luxury hotels where the Vane name would be flagged. The air in the room smelled of damp stone and old books. Albert was hunched over a laptop, his face lit by the pale blue glow of the screen, while Riana sat by the window, watching the narrow street below.
"The journalist's name is Luca Moretti," Albert said, his voice low. "He was
