Chapter 62
It took less than forty-eight hours for Matteo’s global intelligence apparatus to completely strip away the professor’s flawless academic disguise. Inside the suffocatingly quiet study, Matteo dropped a thick, heavily redacted dossier onto the massive mahogany desk. The scarred face of the enforcer, a man who had bled alongside Dante in countless wars, was tight with unprecedented, agonizing tension. Dr. Aris was not a lover of fine arts; he was a high-level phantom operative for the Ember Consortium, an extremist network of shadow oligarchs and corrupt politicians. This was the very organization that had previously dispatched the mercenary Antoine to threaten Sophia’s life in a bid to control Russo Logistics' clean shipping ports.
"They didn't vanish into the ether when Antoine died," Matteo growled, slamming a surveillance photograph onto the desk. The image showed Aris exchanging a briefcase with a faceless man at a foggy Genoese dock. "The 'Black Arrow' biological weapon project was only temporarily derailed. They are still actively seeking to force your hand to open the East Coast ports. Aris maneuvering his way into Sophia’s inner circle in Florence is a direct reminder that they can take her life at any given second."
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Dante walked over to the tall windows, his pale gray eyes colder than a glacial storm. He had sworn to Maya that he would never let violence stain his hands again, promising her a life of pure, uninterrupted freedom. But this world only respected absolute, uncompromising violence. The Ember Consortium's deployment of the Apex Executive logo—a symbol intrinsically tied to the deepest trauma of Elena’s betrayal—was a highly calculated psychological strike intended to shatter his restraint.
"Pull all covert security teams in Florence tight around Sophia," Dante ordered, his deep voice terrifyingly calm, vibrating with lethal intent. "No one alerts Aris. I want him to believe his psychological warfare is working perfectly. Prep my tactical gear and a suppressed weapon, Matteo. I am going to have a private, very educational lecture with the good professor."
