Chapter 1
The scent of frankincense was the first thing to die. It was a smell that had defined Eva’s world for nineteen years—sweet, heavy, and eternal. Now, it was being strangled by the acrid, choking stench of gasoline and the metallic tang of fresh blood.
Eva stood in the center of the Great Chapel, her fingers intertwined so tightly her knuckles turned the color of bleached bone. She didn’t scream. Screaming was for those who still believed in the intervention of men or gods. As the heavy oak doors groaned under the rhythmic thud of a battering ram, she simply watched the stained-glass window of Saint Peter. A moment later, it shattered inward, a thousand shards of sanctified glass falling like a rain of diamonds into the dirt.
*One. Two. Three.* Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic bird trapped in a cage of skin. She closed her eyes, and instinctively, the "Archive" triggered. In the darkness of her mind, files flipped open. Names. Dates. Ledger numbers. The secret sins of the Prime Minister. The offshore accounts of the Cardinal. She was the only person alive who knew where the bodies were buried—metaphorically and literally.
A shadow fell over her, cold and absolute. It wasn't the flickering light of a candle, but something dense and predatory.
"The vault is empty, Commander," a voice crackled through a tactical radio, the static echoing off the vaulted ceiling. "The girl isn’t in the archives."
Eva opened her eyes.
Standing ten paces away was a man who looked less like a human and more like a personification of the void. He was draped in shadows and tactical matte-black gear, his face partially obscured by a hood. But it was his eyes that stopped her breath—they were the color of a winter sea, piercing, frozen, and entirely devoid of mercy.
This was **Caspian**, the man the underworld called *The Wraith*.
Caspian didn't raise his rifle. He didn't need to. The sheer weight of his presence was enough to pin her to the marble floor. He stepped forward, his combat boots crunching over the fragments of Saint Peter’s face. He stopped so close she could smell the ozone of the storm outside and the bitter scent of gun oil.
"Open your mouth, little bird," Caspian whispered. His voice was a low, melodic rasp—like velvet dragged over jagged gravel.
Eva tilted her chin up, her gaze defiant despite the trembling of her knees. "There is nothing for you here but ash."
Caspian’s lips thinned into a ghost of a smirk. He reached out, his gloved hand hovering inches from her throat before his thumb settled on the pulse point of her neck. He wasn't checking for life; he was measuring her fear.
"You’re a terrible liar, Eva," he murmured, his thumb tracing the frantic rhythm of her heart. "You aren't hiding the archive. You *are* the archive. I can see the numbers dancing behind those pretty eyes."
The heat from his hand seeped through his glove, a foreign, terrifying warmth that felt like a brand. For a woman who had spent her life avoiding the touch of men, the sensation was a violent awakening.
"Kill me, then," she whispered, her voice a fragile thread of glass. "Finish the job you were sent to do."
Caspian leaned in, his breath hot against her ear, sending a shiver of pure, primal terror—and an unrecognizable spark of electricity—down her spine.
"I was paid to burn this place to the ground and leave no witnesses," he said, his voice dropping to a predatory silk. "But I’ve always had a taste for things that are forbidden. And you, Eva... you are the ultimate sacrilege."
Outside, the biara groaned as the support beams began to buckle under the heat of the fire. The world was ending in flame, but as Caspian’s hand slid from her neck to grip her arm with bruising force, Eva realized her life hadn't ended. It had just been traded to a different kind of master.
"The saints can't hear you now," Caspian growled, pulling her toward the darkness of the rear exit. "But the devil is listening. And he decided to keep you."
