The red laser dot was a blood-colored bindi on Dante’s chest, perfectly still despite the buffeting wind from the helicopter’s rotors. Time seemed to liquefy. Alessandro was already lunging, his body a desperate human shield, but Seraphina was faster. She didn't move her body; she moved her thumb.
In the pocket of her trench coat, her hand was clamped around a device she had scavenged from the Vatican archive—not a weapon of lead, but one of frequency. It was a Burst-Signal Jammer, a prototype developed by her father during the final days of the 2016 purge.
“Information isn’t just power, Fiammetta,” her father’s voice echoed from a decade-old memory. “It’s a pulse. If you can stop the pulse, you can stop the heart.”
As the sniper’s finger tightened on the trigger, Seraphina depressed th
