The Serenissima Protocol

Venice hides more than water beneath its ancient stones. When four diplomats vanish without a trace during a high-stakes international security summit, Detective Logan Ashford is called in to solve a case that defies every rule of logic. There are no bodies, no ransom notes, no witnesses. Only silence, and a city built on secrets deep enough to swallow the truth whole. Historian Harper Quinn uncovers something no one was meant to find: a centuries-old cipher hidden inside Venice's most treasured artwork, a code passed down through generations of painters, pointing toward something far older and more dangerous than a modern conspiracy.
Behind it all waits Silas Draven, a former intelligence officer who has spent years planning the perfect crime, using the summit's chaos as cover to breach the financial systems of an entire continent. And with veteran sniper Cole Barrett standing between the investigation and a man who kills without hesitation, the team is forced into a race through flooded catacombs, hidden canals, forgotten palazzos, and secret passageways that predate the Republic itself.