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.

The fortress descended into sudden, howling chaos.

Emergency sirens wailed across the stone ramparts as shouting guards scrambled through the pitch-black corridors, their flashlights bouncing erratically off the ancient masonry. Luca and I moved like shadows through the lower service stairs—paths Luca had memorized as a boy when his grandfather still ruled this citadel.

We bypassed two patrols, Luca dropping the rearguard sentry with a single, brutal snap of his neck before the man could even cry out for help. We were a two-person vanguard of vengeance, cutting our way upward toward the Grand Council Chamber.

The double doors of the chamber stood beneath an arched lintel carved with the Rossi family crest—a crowned serpent swallowing a lion. Inside, the muffled voices of angry, panicked men rose above the wailing sirens.

Luca kicked the doors open with a thunderous crash.

The room fell instantly silent.

Emergency crimson backup lights bathed the massive hall in a blood-red glow. Around a colossal mahogany table sat twelve men—the capos of the five ruling syndicates of southern Italy, flanked by their bodyguards. At the head of the table, dressed in an immaculate gray three-piece suit, stood Matteo. In his hand, he held a ceremonial chalice of wine, poised to take the oath of supreme leadership.

When Matteo saw Luca standing in the doorway, blood-stained, bruised, but terrifyingly alive, the chalice slipped from his fingers. It shattered against the marble floor, crimson wine splashing across his polished shoes like spilled blood.

"Mother of God..." one of the older capos gasped, crossing himself. "He's alive."

"Good evening, gentlemen," Luca’s voice echoed through the vaulted hall, cold, smooth, and lethal as a straight razor. He took three deliberate steps into the room, stepping into the crimson glow, his eyes fixed entirely on Matteo. "I apologize for being late. Traffic from the coast was rather murder."

Matteo’s face morphed from sheer horror into twisted, desperate fury. "Shoot him!" he screamed to his personal guards. "Shoot him now!"

Before a single guard could raise a weapon, I stepped out from behind Luca's shoulder, bringing both pistols up simultaneously.

*Bang! Bang!*

The two mercenaries flanking Matteo dropped like stones, rounds punching through their chests before their fingers could clear their holsters. The remaining capos scrambled backward, flipping the heavy mahogany table onto its side to take cover from the crossfire.

Matteo backed away toward the rear dais, his hand scrabbling inside his suit jacket. "You're a ghost, Luca! You have nothing left! The Rossi empire is mine! The banks are mine!"

"An empire is not made of ledgers, Matteo," Luca said, stepping forward, his rifle coming up to level directly at Matteo’s forehead. "It is made of fear. And blood."

Matteo backed against the massive stained-glass window overlooking the stormy sea. Suddenly, a cold, mocking smirk spread across his lips, erasing the panic entirely.

"You always were too sentimental, Luca," Matteo sneered, his hand emerging from his coat—not with a gun, but with a small, glowing digital remote. "Did you really think I didn't plan for your resurrection?"

Luca stopped, his eyes narrowing. "What have you done?"

Matteo tapped a single button on the remote.

A high-pitched tone echoed from the speakers mounted around the chamber, followed by a live video feed flickering onto the massive projector screen on the wall behind him.

The screen flickered to life, showing the interior of our stealth boat down at the sea gate.

Leo was kneeling on the deck, his hands tied behind his back, a heavy steel collar locked around his throat. Standing over him, a combat knife pressed against Leo's carotid artery, was not an enemy mercenary.

It was Donato.

"Loyalty is cheap when the price is five million euros in bearer bonds," Matteo chuckled softly, his finger hovering over a red toggle on the detonator. "Drop your weapons, Don Rossi. Drop them, or your Donna’s brother dies on live camera. And then... we will see how much fight your little maid has left."

Luca’s jaw clenched, his knuckles whitening on his rifle. Beside him, my world shattered into ice.