Emilio doesn’t wait for clean shots. He’s through the side door and into the courtyard before I can stop him, moving low and fast, firing as he goes. A merc swings toward him and Emilio puts two rounds in his throat without slowing down.
“Emilio!” I snap. “Get back inside!”
“Make me!”
Crazy son of a bitch.
I push through the door after him, covering his advance. The rain hits me like needles, cold and relentless. A muzzle flash erupts to my left and I pivot, firing blind, hearing the round ping off metal and then a grunt, a body falling.
The courtyard becomes a kill box.
Our men on the south entrance engage simultaneously. Carmelo’s shotgun booms, the distinct rhythm of Sandro’s pistol is like music to my ears. The Castillo mercs are caught between two firing lines, and they know it. Some try to fall back to the vehicles. Others push forward, gambling on breaching the compound.
Neither works.
I move through chaos the way I was trained. Low, fast, efficient. Each target gets assessed in a fraction of a second: threat level, distance, angle. I fire only when I’m certain. Every round finds flesh.
A merc comes around the corner of an SUV and nearly takes my head off. The round buzzes past my ear, close enough to feel the heat. I drop to a knee and return fire two shots, center mass. He drops.
My heart is hammering but my hands are steady. This is the part of me that never shakes, never hesitates, never questions. The weapon Aurelio built from a thirteen-year-old boy with blood on his hands and nothing left to lose.
Claudio’s voice crackles through the comm. “Second wave incoming. West side.”
Shit. “How many?”
“Eight. Maybe ten. They’re hitting the service entrance.”
“Carmelo, redirect to west. Sandro, hold south.” I grab Emilio by the back of his vest as he passes. “You. With me. Now.”
He wipes blood off his chin and follows without argument.
We cut through the interior, boots echoing off concrete. The compound’s hallways are a maze designed to slow invaders, but I’ve walked them ten thousand times. I could navigate blind.
My mind splits: one half tracking the battle, the other half counting floors. Three levels above the panic room. If they breach the west side, they’ll have access to the lower corridors. They could reach her.
I move faster.
We hit the west service entrance as the second wave breaches. The door blows inward and three mercs pour through thesmoke. I fire before they clear the threshold. The first one drops. The second stumbles sideways, and Emilio finishes him with a shot that makes a mess of the wall.
The third gets a round off. It catches Emilio in the vest, knocking him back a step. He snarls and shoots the man twice in the face.
“You hit?” I ask without looking.
“Bruise.” He rolls his shoulder. “Might cry about it later.”
More shapes in the smoke. I press against the wall and let them come. One. Two. I drop both with short, efficient bursts. Claudio appears behind them, clearing the hallway with his rifle, each shot precise enough to be surgical.
“That’s the last of the west wave,” he says, stepping over a body.
“Confirm?”
He checks his scope, scanning the service entrance. “Clear.”
The gunfire outside is thinning. Sporadic now, not concentrated. The fight is dying, and it’s dying in our favor.
I click the comm. “All teams, report.”
Carmelo shouts, “South clear. Four down.”
