In 1997, a fire ripped through Turin's cathedral—one of the only moments in modern history when the Shroud of Turin wasn't under constant guard. In the chaos, someone may have done the unthinkable: swapped the sacred relic for a flawless counterfeit.
Twenty years later, the Vatican announces a new, high-stakes round of scientific testing, and Dr. Nicole McHenry—an American lead chemist still raw from the losses that have shaped her life—is chosen to help determine the Shroud's authenticity. But before she ever sets foot in Italy, the threats begin.
The threat isn't empty. Hidden beneath the Tuscan countryside, billionaire zealot Pierre Delacroix has been guarding the real Shroud for years—convinced it is divine, convinced it can raise the dead, and convinced prophecy demands he unveil its power on Easter 2018. To stop the Church from exposing the truth, Delacroix unleashes Carter's coercion and Romano's violence. And when bullets tear through Venice, Nicole's world becomes personal in the most brutal way.
Now Nicole and her husband, Liam, are pulled far beyond the boundaries of academia—into the Vatican's most dangerous secrets, where Gideon DeVito and Overwatch wage a shadow war to recover the relic before it becomes a weapon of immortality…and the perfect proof for a manufactured "Second Coming."
In 1997, a fire ripped through Turin's cathedral—one of the only moments in modern history when the Shroud of Turin wasn't under constant guard. In the chaos, someone may have done the unthinkable: swapped the sacred relic for a flawless counterfeit.
Twenty years later, the Vatican announces a new, high-stakes round of scientific testing, and Dr. Nicole McHenry—an American lead chemist still raw from the losses that have shaped her life—is chosen to help determine the Shroud's authenticity. But before she ever sets foot in Italy, the threats begin.
The threat isn't empty. Hidden beneath the Tuscan countryside, billionaire zealot Pierre Delacroix has been guarding the real Shroud for years—convinced it is divine, convinced it can raise the dead, and convinced prophecy demands he unveil its power on Easter 2018. To stop the Church from exposing the truth, Delacroix unleashes Carter's coercion and Romano's violence. And when bullets tear through Venice, Nicole's world becomes personal in the most brutal way.
Now Nicole and her husband, Liam, are pulled far beyond the boundaries of academia—into the Vatican's most dangerous secrets, where Gideon DeVito and Overwatch wage a shadow war to recover the relic before it becomes a weapon of immortality…and the perfect proof for a manufactured "Second Coming."