I check the next corner to find two guards stationed at the end of the corridor, blocking my path. I press myself into the shadows, fingers curling around the hilt of my knife.
My chest burns in protest as I breathe deeply. Every movement needs to count.
When one of them turns away to adjust his earpiece, I strike. A single, brutal slash to the first man’s throat before he can blink.
The second guard raises his weapon, but I’m already inside his range, driving the knife into his gut and twisting until he falls silent.
The hallway is clear again, but my breath comes heavier now, the pain in my chest a roaring fire. I collapse to my knees, darkness threatening to encompass my vision.
“Fuck,” I breathe, and I breathe, half-heartedly backing up against the wall in case someone charges through the doors.
If anyone finds me here, vulnerable and exposed like this…
I don’t think about it. I think about Mia. Mia is here. Liza and Luca are waiting with Isabella for her. They need their mother.
I need my wife.
The roaring flames in my chest begin to subside, and I shakily break open the painkillers I brought in case of emergency. They’ll make me more sluggish, but I can’t collapse like this again.
Not when Max is somewhere in this hellhole.
I slowly get to my feet and return to my mission.
The air grows heavier as I move deeper into the compound, the smell of gunpowder mixing with the acrid stench of blood.
The fight seems both inches away and too far out of reach. Every time I think it’s getting closer, I turn another corner, and it’s faded back again.
The blueprints indicated that the cell block was near a wide storage room on the ground floor. It was perhaps presumptuous of me to think that such a non-vital space would be left unguarded and that the bigger threat would be stationed outside the prison.
This much becomes clear as I slip into the storage room, only to be greeted by a slow clap, halting me in my tracks.
Max.
He stands in a wide storage room, leaning casually against a stack of crates as if this is all some kind of joke. A pistol dangles loosely from his hand, his gaze sharp and his smile threatening as he surveys the state I’m in.
“I gotta say, Leon. You’re one hard man to kill,” he says, straightening slightly.
This is the man I trusted for months. The mastermind behind my every downfall.
“What can I say? You’re a sloppy shot.” I twirl the knife in my fingers as I stalk toward him.
Max’s smile only widens. He steps forward, closing the gap between us.
I can see the confidence in his eyes—the kind of arrogance that comes from knowing you’ve got the upper hand.
“You look like hell, boss,” he taunts, gesturing to my chest. “That little souvenir I gave you slowing you down? You should’ve stayed in your hospital bed.”
I lunge at him, slashing low with my knife, but he’s ready. He sidesteps, the blade missing his gut by a fraction of an inch. His fist connects with my ribs, and pain explodes through my torso, nearly driving me to my knees.
“See? You’re too slow now. Too weak,” he circles me like a predator. “Is Teo Vitale so desperate that he’d send an invalid to do his dirty work?”
He kicks my knife from my hand, sending it skittering across the floor. I barely dodge the next blow, using his momentum to drive my shoulder into his chest.
He staggers back with a laugh. “No, that’s not his style, is it? You’re here on your own. Couldn’t resist the temptation to play the hero, could you?”
I freeze as Max levels his gun on me, a damning sense of deja-vu hammering through my burning chest.
“What’s that little wife of yours going to think when I tell her you were too weak to save her?”
