Vera

Luca Ferri’s name sat on the screen like a curse that had learned how to spell itself.

Dead.

Perimeter sector three.

One of the men she had spared.

Vera stood very still in the command room while the estate woke around her—guards rotating, engines starting, radios crackling. The machinery of power moved on. Her heart did not.

“Confirmed?” she asked, her voice steady.

Marco nodded. “Ballistics match our security teams. He breached with two others. Both neutralized. Luca was ...