Something about this operation had felt wrong from the beginning—the pieces weren’t quite fitting together. And they sure as shit didn’t fit the Paraskia Syndicate’s usual MO.
Just as I pocketed the phone, my phone buzzed again but this time with a different pattern.
I glanced at the screen—Vincenzo Salvini.
Perfect fucking timing.
I straightened my shoulders and took a deep breath, centering myself. This call would determine whether this whole mission succeeded or failed. I couldn’t afford to sound rushed or uncertain.
“I was expecting your call a lot sooner,” I answered, my voice deliberately cool and measured.
“Cut the bullshit, Zotov.” Salvini’s voice came through sharp and controlled, but I caught the undercurrent of rage. Good. Emotional opponents made mistakes.
“What do you want?” he said, and the edge in his voice would have intimidated most men.
I wasn’t most men.
I leaned against the wall, adopting a casual posture even though he couldn’t see me. Body language affected voice tone—a lesson learned through years of interrogations. “Straight to business, I see. Very well?—”
A tight smile formed on my lips. His frustration confirmed I held all the cards. I could almost picture him—knuckles white around his phone, that famous Salvini temper barely contained beneath his composed exterior.
Suddenly, a shrieking alarm jolted me into action. I stared up and down the corridor for a split second.
What was going on? Was that the fire alarm?
Staff members rushed past me, their movements precise and practiced despite the chaos. My mind immediately locked onto one thought: the Salvini girl.
I quit the call and sprinted back toward her room, the acrid smell of smoke growing stronger with each step. Smoke seeped through the cracks around the door frame—not from elsewhere in the building but from inside her room.
What the actual fuck?
Did she start a fire?
On purpose?
Clever, resourceful, and absolutely fucking crazy.
Just as I reached the door, it slid open to reveal a room filled with white smoke.
And the girl?
She stood in the middle of the entrance, eyes wide, coughing violently. Her expression shifted from panic to an unconvincing attempt at innocence as soon as she saw me.
“What the hell did you do?” I demanded, grabbed the fire extinguisher that hung just outside the room, then crowding her until she stepped back into the room.
Was this her plan of escape? Setting a fucking hospital on fire and hoping to disappear in the chaos?
Should’ve known she only simulated her unconsciousness. “Fuck, I really don’t care about babysitting brainless bimbos who can’t even think through the consequences to their actions.”
I grabbed her arm. “Where’s the fire?”
She pointed to the back wall.
I pulled her with me to the hospital bed beneath the vent. “You stay put; if you even so much as move a muscle, I’m strangling you to death.” I climbed up on the bed, then directed the nozzle into the vent while staring her down, daring her to move.
The foam smothered the flames, but smoke continued to billow out.
“I didn’t—” she started, then dissolved into another coughing fit.
