A Secret Consilium, or Ten Percent for Lucifer

Глава 1Lake Como slumbered in the crisp, almost tangible stillness of late Alpine autumn. The chalet’s panoramic terrace offered a picture-postcard view of ineffable beauty: the mirrored azure expanse of the lake reflecting the steep slopes of the Lombard Alps, their peaks dusted with the season’s first silvery frost. Below, along the drowsy shores, nestled pastel-colored villas of the wealthy, draped in crimson wild ivy, while the faint, invisible bells of grazing goats echoed across distant terraced slopes.The air was rich with the scent of damp mountain woods, decaying chestnuts, and the absolute, centuries-old serenity of old European wealth.The chalet itself—a monumental, three-story château fashioned from dark larch beams and grey Alpine slate—was officially registered to an unassuming financial foundation based in Lugano with a convoluted corporate holding name. To hundreds of th…