No answer.
My chest tightened.
My pulse surged.
I spun back into the corridor just as Ciro and Renzo approached from the far end, their steps quick but controlled.
“What ward is she in?” I barked, voice echoing down the hall. “Thirty seconds—and I’ll burn this hospital down if she’s not in my sight!”
Ciro stopped a few feet away.
His face—carefully blank.
“Boss...” he said, and something in his tone made my stomach drop. “She was taken again.”
Silence.
The words didn’t process at first.
“She was what?”
Ciro didn’t look away.
“Taken,” he repeated. “By the Spanish.”
For a moment—
The world went still.
Then it shattered.
My knees buckled slightly.
I caught myself against the wall before I could go down.
“No,” I said, the word torn straight from my chest. “No.”
My head shook once.
Violent. Denial. Refusal.
“I chased those ambulances myself,” I snapped. “I watched them leave. How—how the fuck did the Spanish get her out of here?”
My voice rose.
“This place is locked down tighter than a vault.”
I stepped forward, aggressive and deliberate.
“Since when do the Spanish have access to a hospital we control?”
Ciro met my gaze without flinching.
“The only explanation I can see is that one of the soldiers here is secretly working with them and helped take Elena.”
The words hit like a bullet.
I froze.
