He fired back without looking—two shots that sparked off stone walls, ricochets screaming past my head. I ducked, returned fire, and heard him curse again.
Definitely hit. But he kept moving.
The passage branched. Left or right?
I chose left, following instinct and the sound of his breathing.
Wrong choice.
He'd circled back and came at me from behind. Something heavy—a pipe, a piece of wood—cracked across my shoulders. I went down hard, the Glock skittering across stone.
Marco loomed over me, weapon raised.
"You should have taken the honorable fight," he panted. "Now you just die in the dark."
I swept his legs. He went down cursing. We grappled in the narrow space—too close for guns, too cramped for proper fighting. Just brutal, desperate violence.
He was older but vicious, fighting with nothing left to lose. Caught me with an elbow to the throat that left me gasping. I returned with a knee to his ribs that made something crack.
We broke apart, both scrambling for weapons.
I reached the Glock first.
Marco lunged for his.
I fired.
The shot caught his leg. He went down hard, weapon clattering away.
"Stay down."
He didn't. Tried to drag himself toward the gun. I kicked it away and trained the Glock on his head.
"It's over, Marco."
He lay there, breathing hard, blood pooling beneath his leg. Not fatal. Not even close to fatal. But he wasn't running anywhere.
The passage opened into the main hallway. I hauled Marco out by his collar, his wounded leg dragging, leaving a red smear on the marble.
Behind us, SWAT was breaching the front entrance—flashbangs, shouting, boots pounding marble.
Marco's head turned toward the panic room door where Valentina was trapped. Even now—bleeding, caught, finished—something desperate flickered in his eyes.
"Don't," I said quietly.
He slumped, the fight finally going out of him.
SWAT poured through every entrance simultaneously—black-clad officers with assault rifles, red laser sights painting everything, voices overlapping in controlled chaos.
"Hands! Show me your hands! On the ground! Now!"
I raised both hands immediately and stepped back from Marco. Blood from my forehead dripped onto the expensive carpet.
"The man on the ground is Marco DeLuca," Valentina's voice came through the panic room speaker, clear and calm. "The other man saved my life. Please."
Officers swarmed Marco, zip-tied his wrists with practiced efficiency. Medics moved in to address his leg wound. Two kept weapons trained on me while a sergeant approached cautiously.
"Alessio Valestri?"
