Four days after taking a job in a mob boss's mansion, an innocent kiss on his cheek made his hand slam into the wall beside my head.

Elena turned her head toward the bank of monitors. The cameras displayed the central courtyard, the marble foyer, and the wide hallway directly outside the bunker.

The estate was in ruins. Antique tapestries hung in smoldering shreds, classical statues lay shattered across blood-spattered floors, and the bodies of several Rossi guards lay motionless amidst the debris. But it was camera four—focused on the fountain in the grand entrance hall—that made Elena’s heart plummet into an abyss.

"Leo!" she gasped, her hands flying to her mouth.

On the screen, her younger brother was kneeling on the shattered marble, his hands bound behind his back. A mercenary held him by his collar, the barrel of a pistol pressed firmly against Leo’s temple. Enzo Moretti stood directly in front of the camera, holding an estate radio unit.

A sudden burst of static crackled through the bunker's intercom system.

"Luca! Can you hear me in there, you rat?" Enzo’s voice oozed from the ceiling speaker, crackling with malicious glee. "I know your little bunker is tough, but this torch will breach the seal in twenty minutes. However, I thought we might speed things up."

Enzo stepped closer to the camera, grabbing Leo by the hair and jerking his head back violently. Leo let out a cry of pain that tore through Elena's soul.

"I found your little maid’s brother hiding in the wine cellar," Enzo sneered. "Nice kid. A bit loud, but he has good lungs. Here’s the deal, Don Rossi: you open that blast door right now and walk out with your hands up, or I blow this boy’s brains all over your imported Italian marble. You have five minutes to decide."

The screen showed Enzo cocking the hammer of the gun against Leo's skull.

"No, no, please, God, no!" Elena sobbed, rushing to the monitor, her fingers clawing at the glass as if she could pull her brother through the display. "Luca, we have to do something! He’s going to kill him!"

Luca had already pushed himself to his feet. He swayed dangerously, leaning against the ammunition crates for balance, his face drawn and white, but his eyes were cold as black ice. The fever seemed to have burned away, replaced by an absolute, chilling stillness.

"He won't kill him," Luca said flatly.

"He will! You don't know Enzo—"

"I know Enzo better than anyone," Luca interrupted, his voice dropping an octave. "Leo is his only leverage. If he kills the boy, he loses his card to draw us out before my reinforcements arrive. But he will torture him. And when he's done with him, he will kill us all anyway."

"Then what do we do?" Elena cried out, tears blurring her vision. "We can't just let him hurt Leo!"

Luca walked unsteadily toward a heavy steel cabinet concealed behind an electrical panel. He punched in a secondary code and pulled the lever. The entire back wall of the bunker groaned, sliding back to reveal a pitch-black subterranean tunnel sloping steeply downward into the earth.