Page 215 of Diego

The guard looks up too late. Dante catches his wrist before he can reach beneath his coat, drives him back against the wall, and puts him down with a muffled shot to the head before he can make enough noise to alert anyone else. Tomasso takes the weapon from the man’s waistband while Matteo checks the corner leading toward the back entrance.

We keep moving.

The second guard is less obliging. He comes around the corner of the garage at the same moment Nico reaches the open stretch between the buildings and immediately reaches inside his jacket. Nico does not hesitate. He closes the distance before the man can draw properly, knocks the weapon aside, and drives him hard into the side of the garage.

The guard recovers faster than I expect. He swings once, catches Nico across the shoulder, and manages to get his hand back on the gun before Antonio reaches them.

Antonio catches the man’s arm, Nico twists the weapon free, and quickly jerks the man’s head to the right, breaking his neck without a sound.

Antonio looks down at the dead guard and adjusts the cuff of his coat. “I was hoping we could avoid that.”

Nico hands the weapon to one of Ricardo’s people.

The third guard has already noticed something is wrong.

A light appears near the back entrance, and a man steps outside with a gun in his hand. He sees movement near the garage and raises it.

“Down,” Ricardo snaps.

We split for cover as the first shot cracks across the property.

I move behind a stone planter and draw my weapon. Another shot hits the edge of the garage, sending fragments from the brick near Tomasso’s shoulder. Giovanni has taken cover beside a parked vehicle, and Antonio is behind him while Nico moves along the opposite side.

The guard fires again.

This time I answer.

The man drops near the back steps.

For several seconds, nobody moves except to check the windows and doors for a response from inside. No lights switch on. Nobody comes running. Nobody fires from the house.

That bothers me more than a dozen people pouring out would have.

Ricardo seems to reach the same conclusion. He signals to the people positioned behind the property, and confirmation comes back that nobody has tried to leave.

“Too few,” Matteo says beside me.

“Yeah,” I answer. “For a place they bothered guarding.”

Giovanni looks toward the back entrance. “Let’s find out why.”

We enter through the door the third guard used. The first floor gives us a kitchen, a wide central hallway, a sitting area, and an office with the door open, but almost no sign of anyone actually living here. The refrigerator holds food, the counters have been used recently, and there are coats hanging near an entrance, but most of the house looks functional rather than personal.

We clear the lower level before moving upstairs. One guard appears at the end of the second-floor hallway and freezes when he sees us, his hand already moving toward his side. Tomasso hits him before he gets the gun clear, and Matteo is on him a second later, taking the weapon while Dante binds his wrists.

Ricardo wants him alive for questioning.

“Anyone else?” Ricardo asks.

The man says nothing.

Ricardo does not waste time trying to force an answer out of him while we still have an entire property to search. Two of our people stay with the guard we have alive while the rest of us keep moving.

At Ricardo's silent command, we split up and head off in different directions in twos.

I head upstairs, followed by Antonio.

The bedrooms upstairs are almost empty. One has been used recently; another contains clothing and several duffel bags, but the remaining spaces have little beyond basic furniture. Nobody is hiding in a closet or behind a locked bathroom door. We find no sign of Giovanni’s man upstairs, and each empty space makes the whole situation more suspicious.