Three hours before Tinbunny's flight...

The sun was warm on Veronica’s neck as she sat in the small piazza, a sketchbook open on her lap. The village was a postcard-perfect cliché of Italian coastal life: terracotta roofs, vibrant bougainvillea spilling over ancient stone walls, and the distant, rhythmic shush of the Adriatic Sea. She was a Canadian art student named "Chloe," and she was having a lovely, productive morning sketching the intricate ironwork on a 17th-century balcony.

Her cover was perfect. Her mission, straightforward. For the past forty-eight hours, she had been a ghost, mapping the perimeter of Principe Visconti's palatial estate that loomed on the cliff above the village. She had noted the guard patrols, the camera placements, the blind spots. She was a professional, and she was good at her job. The extraction of Tinbunny and the Door was going to be a clean, simple operation. Her next check-in with the Blockhouse wasn't for another few hours.

The first hint that something was wrong was the silence.

The usual mid-morning routine of the estate—the distant hum of a lawnmower, the arrival of a delivery truck—was absent. A strange, expectant stillness had settled over the cliffs, a silence that felt heavy, unnatural. Veronica’s training kicked in, a cold prickle of unease at the base of her skull. The pattern was broken.

She subtly packed her sketching pencils, her movements calm and unhurried. She paid for her espresso, leaving a generous tip, and began a casual stroll back towards her small pensione on the edge of the village. She didn't look over her shoulder. She didn't need to. She could feel it. She was being watched.

As she turned onto the quiet, narrow lane that led to her room, they emerged.

They didn't come from the estate. They came from the village itself. The man who ran the local bakery, his hands still dusted with flour. The old woman who sold lemons at the market stall. Two fishermen mending their nets by the harbour wall. They were not Rocco's security guards; they were his cult. His eyes and ears. And they moved with a slow, deliberate, and utterly terrifying purpose, their faces blank, their eyes holding a chilling, vacant devotion.

They fanned out, blocking the lane in front of her and behind her. There was no escape.

Veronica stopped, her hand inching towards the small, concealed blade strapped to her thigh. It was a futile gesture, and she knew it.

The baker stepped forward, his expression not one of aggression, but of serene, absolute certainty. "The Principe sends his regards, signorina," he said, his voice soft, almost gentle. "He apologizes for the change in your travel plans. He has arranged a new destination for you."

He gestured, and from a shadowed doorway, two of Rocco's actual security guards emerged. They were the same brutish, silent figures Tinbunny would later encounter on the plane. They took Veronica by the arms, their grips like iron, and effortlessly disarmed her.

She didn't scream. She didn't struggle. She was a professional, and she knew when the game was lost.

As they led her away, a black, windowless van pulling silently into the lane, she saw the old woman from the market stall pick up her discarded sketchbook. The woman looked at the half-finished drawing of the balcony, then up at Veronica, a faint, pitying smile on her lips.

"Such a shame," the old woman murmured, her voice a dry rustle of leaves. "You had a real talent."

The doors of the van closed, plunging Veronica into darkness. The extraction agent had been extracted hours before the prize was even stolen. The Blockhouse was already flying completely blind.