SOPHIA'S POV

The private water taxi cut quietly through the dark, murky water of the Grand Canal, leaving a soft white trail behind us in the Venetian night.

Venice was a maze of rising mist, old stone bridges, and narrow, dark waterways. For hundreds of years, it had been a playground for rich nobles, dishonest officials, and shadowy men who bought their silence with old gold. There was no better place in Western Europe to hide a billion-dollar ghost network.

The air smelled of salt water and old stone, and somewhere far off a church bell rang the hour, its sound rolling low across the canals. A few late gondolas...