The building did not look important.
That was the point.
It stood along a narrow street in Naples, its facade chipped and unremarkable, wedged between a closed tailor shop and a café that never seemed to shut its doors. No guards outside. No cameras visible. No signs of wealth or power.
Inside, everything changed.
The walls were lined with screens. Dozens of them. Live feeds. News replays. Surveillance angles pulled from drones and hacked city cameras. At the center of the room, Aria's face filled the largest screen, frozen mid-sentence.
I choose.
The man seated before the screens leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled beneath his chin.
He was calm.
That unsettled everyone else in the room.
"Play it again," he said.
One of the men hesitated. "We have already analyzed her speech. The message is clear. She is rejecting the doctrine."
"Yes," the man replied softly. "But I want to hear how she does it."
The video restarted.
