Someone inside knows something is wrong.
They just don’t knowwhatyet.
It’s funny how anxiety always betrays itself. Men can train their faces, their voices, even their heart rates, but knee-jerk reactions never lie. Fear always leaves a fingerprint, whether you want it to or not.
The convoy slows long before we reach the gates, engines dropping to a near-silent crawl. Our headlights have been dead for miles now, darkness swallowing us whole as we roll forward on GPS navigation alone.
In the front seat, Bianchi cuts the engine completely. The sudden silence feels more absolute than the click of the magazine sliding back into my weapon. He lifts the radio to his mouth, his movements careful as he flips to the live channel.
“First units, head out,” he murmurs into it.
I lean forward in my seat as my men melt out of the vehicles. They move like shadows breaking free from the dark. I don’t need night vision to know exactly where they are. I’ve trained with them. I can picture the choreography of their movement without seeing it.
The two guards stationed at the gate barely have time to register their silhouettes moving toward them. One of them turns, mouth opening as if to speak, and then his body jerks as a bullet hits him right between the eyes. He slumps forward, his weight crashing into the control box hard enough to rattle the metal frame.
The sound is brief, swallowed immediately by the night.
The second drops where he stands right as he’s mid-turn. Blood blooms right over his head, his eyes blown wide in naked surprise, the expression frozen permanently on his face before his body even hits the ground.
One of my men is already stepping over the bodies, boot nudging the first guard aside to get better access to the control panel. His silhouette is barely visible inside the security box, swallowed by shadows and the flickering monitor. Seconds later, the mechanical groan of the gate hums to life.
The iron bars shudder, hesitating for a fraction of a second before they begin to part. When the gate finally settles wideenough for passage, it does so with an almost reluctant clank. Bianchi turns the ignition over immediately.
The engine hums back to life beneath us and he eases the car forward through the opening. The drive up the long, winding S-turn road feels painfully long. The estate looms ahead with every curve, its lights cutting jagged shapes through the trees lining the drive. The road coils back on itself again and again, forcing us to slow at every turn.
My fingers flex once around my weapon.
When the tree line finally breaks, the front of the estate rises up before us. It’s a palace built to intimidate and impress, never once considering how easily that grandeur can become its downfall. Lights glow across the courtyard, illuminating a large fountain and the wide stone steps leading up to front doors.
The car slows, barely coming to a full stop before the ones behind us pull up in formation. Doors are thrown open and my men spill out in disciplined chaos with their weapons already raised. The convoy fans out, positions taken in seconds.
A group of them slams into the front doors with a breaching charge, the explosion shattering the glass panel next to it and folding the doors inward. My men surge forward, disappearing into the estate like a tide that cannot be held back.
I step out last along with Bianchi.
“Ready?” he murmurs.
My eyes glance back toward the convoy, fixating my attention on the surveillance van that traveled with us. Even without seeing the inside of it, I already know Leo and Romano are hunchedover their equipment, working quickly to get into the Palermo’s security system to access the CCTV inside.
The night air is cool against my skin. I adjust my grip on my weapon and start forward, nodding back to Bianchi.
“Let’s go.”
Inside the estate, the marble floors gleam beneath our boots, pristine for only half a second more before the first body hits the hard surface and blood spills out in a dark, slick arc. Gunfire erupts down the hall from where we are in short, controlled bursts that echo loudly off the walls and vaulted ceilings.
The sound is deafening in an enclosed space like this, ricocheting until it’s impossible to tell exactly where the shots are coming from unless you’re trained to hear the difference.
I move forward without slowing, stepping over the first fallen enforcers as my grip on my weapon tightens. I pull it up just as a Bellanti enforcer rounds the corner, wasting no time before pulling the trigger and hitting him square in the chest. He drops before he can squeeze off a shot of his own, his blood splattering across a marble column behind him that I vaguely recognize as imported Carrara.
So much money spent on aesthetics.
What a shame.
Bianchi leaves my side exactly as planned, splitting off down another branching hallway to follow the first set of our soldiers. Romano’s voice crackles once over the comms in my ear with a confirmation that he and Leo have successfully gained access to the CCTV.
“They’re being held in the east wing’s lounge room. Follow the hallway on your left and take the next turn on your right. It’s the last door at the end.”
I follow the directions without hesitation.
