Dante’s voice moved through the dark.“Do you hear it?That sound?”
I raised the gun, followed the sound.The darkness was thick.Every muscle in my body knew what to do before my brain caught up.
“Be careful of explosives,” Marco hissed.
“Found one.Two minutes,” Andre said.
“Get Mia out.”
“No,” Mia whispered behind me.“I stay?—”
“Not now.”
The click of her breath told me she understood, even if she hated me for it.
The voice came again — closer this time, from the back corridor.“Your grandfather signed away the city before you were even born, Enrico.He called it progress.Said the Gallos would protect trade, the Morettis would control supply.You know what they were supplying?”
“Death.”
“Debt,” Dante corrected, his laughter brushing the walls.“And now it’s yours.”
A single gunshot cracked the dark.Andre fired toward the sound, two precise replies that broke glass.
“Mia, go!”
Another hum.Louder.Closer.The compressor wasn’t a compressor — it was wired.
“Marco,” I barked.
“Got it.”He was already moving.
I knelt beside him, the gun still ready.Sweat rolled down his temple despite the cold.“How long?”
“Get out.”
A shadow moved where light should be.Dante again.Closer than before.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”he said.“How history repeats itself.The Moretti’s destroy what they can’t control.The Gallos burn what they can’t forgive.”
I leveled the gun at him.He didn’t flinch.
“You won’t shoot,” he said.
“Try me.”
He smiled, slow and poisonous.“Your father said the same thing once.”
The name landed like a punch to the ribs.
“Oh, you didn’t know?He wasn’t trying to protect the family, Enrico.He ordered Giovanni killed because Giovanni threatened to expose the trafficking routes they’d built together.The alliance wasn’t a peace.It was a cover.So many things you didn’t know about your father and the legacy he left you.”
My throat wouldn’t open.
He stepped closer.“You think you’re cleaning his mess.You’re standing in it.”
I fired.
The bullet missed his throat by an inch, shattered a pane behind him.Glass rained down like applause.He didn’t stop smiling.
