The bunker’s air, once cold and sterile, now felt thick with the static of an impending strike. Red strobes painted Luca’s scarred face in rhythmic pulses of blood-light, a visual countdown to a confrontation years in the making. On the monitors, the two people Seraphina hated most were standing side-by-side, emerging from the sapphire gloom like twin harbingers of the apocalypse.
"How did they find this place?" Seraphina hissed, her fingers locking onto the grip of her Beretta. Every instinct as an active protagonist screamed for a tactical exit. "You said this was the 'Real' Grotto. You said it was invisible."
"Nothing is invisible to a Romano who has spent thirty years mapping the bones of this island," Luca replied, his voice a low, lethal rasp. He tossed a spare magazine to Seraphin
