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He assured me that she was okay, but I didn’t believe him until a screenshot of her finally dinged through my texts. She is okay, or at least she appears to be unharmed. The look on her face is brave, but I know her – that face and those eyes. She is trying to be brave while hiding the fact that she is absolutely terrified. Ava is a smart girl, and there is no doubt she is aware of the severity of the situation that she is in.
I hope you know I am coming for you piccola pesca.
There are twelve us as we climb from the SUVs, and we leave three men behind with the cars for quick getaway. All of us are dressed in black and armed to the teeth – pistols, semi-automatic rifles, small explosives. We are walking into this building fully prepared for war, ready to kill every last man to get back what is mine.
We split into two teams of six, half heading towards the front and my half heading towards the back. Luca’s team is going to take the front, while mine will take the back. The plan is to breech both entrances simultaneously, and to make quick and quiet work of getting up to the penthouse. After scaling the chain-link fence, I pick the lock to the service entrance at the back of building.
The plan is to keep this as quiet as possible for as long as we can. I pull the door slightly ajar while taking a firm grip on the handle of my knife. Glancing down at my watch, ten seconds to go.
Nine…eight…seven…six…five…four…three… two…
A loud boom comes from a transformer just down the street, and the lights immediately go out for the majority of the block. Pulling the door open, I step inside and can immediately hear the chaos coming from Karyan’s security detail.
“It’s the whole block,” I hear a calm voice through the radio of a guard standing just around the corner from me.
I pause, giving him the opportunity to respond to the man on the other end. As soon as he finishes, I step around the corner and plunge my knife between his ribs and into his lung while wrapping my hand over his mouth. Using the hand stifling his bloody cries for help as leverage, I pull the knife from his chest and immediately slide it across his neck before dropping him to the floor.
The service entrance to this building was poorly secured or guarded. It is either the oversight of a shitty security detail or a trap – both of which we are entering this building prepared for. Barring the potential for surprise, we have twenty-two flights of stairs to climb to reach the penthouse.
With my knife still firmly gripped in my right palm, I grab the rifle slung around my neck with my left hand to hold it against my body, and begin taking the stairs two at a time. The five guys behind me all do virtually the same, as we make quick work of heading upstairs.
The only sounds in this stairwell are our boots stomping along the stairs and our heavy exerted breaths. It isn’t until we reach the eighteenth floor that I realize just how eerily quiet it is. While it was going to be hit or miss for guards back here, I fully expected Luca’s guys taking the front of the building to be met with some resistance. While my guys are good at their jobs, they aren’t that good.
Bang bang bang.
My thoughts came too soon, as faint gunshots echo through the building.
That changes things…
“Pick up the pace,” I call back to the exhausted guys behind me. Gun shots mean they know we are here. They know what we are coming for, and that means that Avalie is now in danger.
The clang of metal reverberates through the stairwell as a fire door slams shut a few floors below us. It is immediately followed by the sounds of multiple sets of feet racing up the stairs to find us.
“Go,” Marco yells over the loud stomping of their feet, “Get her, I will hold them off.”
We all know that this might be a suicide mission for him, butthisis what you do for the family. He turns and begins quietly moving down the flight of stairs while the rest of us try to reach for the fire door to the penthouse.
Gently pulling at the handle to the door, I am quite surprised to find it unlocked. That feeling does not change when I pull it open only to find a pistol shoved into my face.
They knew we were coming this way.
He must have anticipated I would be alone, because his face is nothing short of complete shock as I move to the right just enough for Carlo to squeeze off three deafening rounds between me and the doorframe, dropping the man holding the gun to my face instantly.
More gunshots go off below us. The repeated pops echoing throughout the stairwell so loudly that the sound is disorienting. Through the noise I can hear Marco yelling, but I am unable to comprehend any of what it is he is saying.
I feel a hand on my shoulder that immediately refocuses me. I turn to see Carlo nudging me to proceed through the doorway and down the hallway. Grabbing the rifle slung around my neck with both hands, I step over the dead man laying at my feet.
ChapterForty-Three
Avalie
I am startled awake and for a moment I think it is just a nightmare of the other night, but I quickly realize that no one is coming to abduct me.
My face is throbbing and my head pounding as I push myself up from the floor.
What the fuck am I doing on the floor?
Fuck!
