For Giovanni sleep was an experience. His dreams belonged not to him. To hallways filled with lingering murmurs steps, in the darkness and the unyielding rhythmic beat of his own skin pounding like a sinister, additional heart. He awoke not with the sunrise. With heightened alertness: a shadow cast on his fragile bedroom curtain.
He halted, his breath stuck in his throat. Not a play of shadows. Someone. Tall motionless, watching.
His body reacted before his mind could cry out. He tumbled from his bed landing on the floor just as glass broke and a muted thud echoed where his pillow once lay. A silenced gunshot. Terror, sharp and clear flooded his bloodstream with adrenaline. He crawled on hands and knees toward the other room, in his apartment a small kitchenette as his front door was smashed open by a fierce kick.
Giovanni grabbed a cast-iron pan off the stove, a tool, against a firearm. He crouched behind the kitchen island. He noticed boots—polished—walking through the wreckage. No speech. Only swift deadly action.
Next an engine blared loudly headlights pouring light into the room via the window. Tires squealed sharply. The boots faltered momentarily. A car door banged shut and swift, heavy footsteps thundered up the stairs.
"GIOVANNI!" Jacques' voice, a booming wall of sound.
The trespasser executed an assessment. One more bullet, targeted at the cupboard above Giovanni's head shattering wood. A warning, not a blow. Then a quick withdrawal through the window and, down the fire escape.
Jacques stormed through the door dominating the area. His gaze scanned the room settling on Giovanni curled up on the ground gripping the skillet tightly with knuckles. "Are you injured?"
"No " Giovanni croaked. "They… they failed to hit."
Jacques lifted him with a steady hold. "No mistake. A warning shot. They intended to show you they can reach you. That was Helena Helga's doing. Precise." He glanced at the door the smashed window. "You aren't secure here. No place is yours anymore."
Arthur Alexander's clinic no longer felt the same. It was no longer a healing space but more like an improvised fortress. Jacques had added locks and motion-activated lights around the exterior. Giovanni rested on the exam table wrapped in a blanket trembling not due to the chill but, from the lingering shock.
Isabella came in her expression marked by anger and dread. "They're intensifying. Siegfried recognizes you. Shortly after Helena attempts to… what? Intimidate you? Murder you?"
"To gauge " Maria Magnolia murmured gently. She arrived carrying bunches of safeguarding herbs. She wandered through the chamber setting sprigs of rowan and St. John's Wort near the windows and entrances. "A surgeon examines before slicing. She assessed defenses. Discovered one." She gestured toward Jacques, the fortress. ". She also perceived his fear. His response. She adapts."
"We have to pick up the pace " Isabella said sharply. She took out her phone revealing a website. "Olivia Marigold. Freelance corporate 'liaison.' She's able to access areas we cannot converse, with individuals who'd hang up on me. She's pricey. She takes the highest offer but she's indebted to me."
"A engineer " Arthur pondered, feeling Giovanni's rapid heartbeat. "To traverse the maze of nature."
"Precisely. As Maria guides us in comprehending the one." Isabella's eyes shifted to Giovanni's arm. "We must find out where that dark core directs us. Is it merely a sign?. Could it be…an entrance?"
Giovanni recoiled. The notion was intolerable.
Afterward, by himself with Arthur as he rubbed a soothing ointment on the skin, near the labyrinth Giovanni revealed his greatest fear. "What if… what if when the falsehood is complete when its roots have fully spread… the darkness extends to the border? What becomes of me?"
Arthur's hands came to a rest the foundation struggling against a flood of the unexplainable. "I'm unsure " he confessed, his empathy clashing with his logic. ". We won't allow it to reach that point. We handle this like an infection. We identify the origin. We remove it."
Giovanni murmured, "The source has perished."
"No " Arthur replied, his tone resolute. "The origin is the falsehood itself.. Falsehoods require living voices to continue uttering them."
Olivia Marigold embodied charm itself. They encountered her at a unnamed wine bar in Grenoble, where her smile served as a precisely tuned tool. She absorbed Isabella's presentation—a delicate political issue, covert characters, a requirement, for subtle financial and social investigation—and her eyes, the shade of fine whisky gleamed with fascination.
"Oliver Osborne's spirit is active for someone " she remarked, taking a sip of her Sancerre. "His formal records are spotless. Suspiciously so. Yet a man with a ' vision' requires funding and funding, for vision tends to be complicated." She inclined closer her fragrance. Assertive. "There's a corporation. 'Ariadne's Thread Holdings.' Quite poetic isn't it? Registered in Luxembourg. It obtained untraceable funds from a chemical consortium located right here, in Valence—a consortium Osborne openly promised to impose strict regulations on. Truly a necessary contradiction."
"Who holds command over the shell?" Isabella inquired.
"A lawyer. Discreet quite costly." Olivia unfolded a slip of paper. Pushed it across the table. "His name.. His preferred bistro. He dines there every Thursday with his mistress. He is a man driven by desires. Desires lead to vulnerabilities."
As they left, Olivia's gaze lingered on Giovanni, who had sat silently in the corner. "Your quiet friend," she said to Isabella. "He holds the spool, doesn't he? Be careful. Those who play with threads often find themselves tangled."