Chapter 14
While Aiden recovered in the med-bay, Anna vanished into the night. She didn't head for the roof, she headed straight for the heart of the Valenti stronghold.
?Moving like a ghost through their perimeter sensors, she scaled a vantage point overlooking their private courtyard. Through her scope, she spotted the cell leader responsible for the warehouse hit.
She didn't go for a headshot. With cold, mathematical symmetry, she pulled the trigger twice. Two rounds tore through the man, one in the shoulder, one in the side, mirroring Aiden’s wounds exactly. It was a signature, a calling card written in lead.
?When she slipped back into the estate, Aiden was waiting, sitting up with a glass of bourbon and a knowing look. He had watched her leave with the rifle case, and for the first time in his life, he knew what it felt like to truly have someone watching his back.
?"Busy night?" he asked, his voice laced with a dark amusement.
?"You could say that," Anna answered, her expression unreadable as she began to disassemble the weapon. "Just a few lessons that needed teaching."
Days later, seeking a moment of normalcy, Aiden arranged a trip to a private botanical garden. Sofia, desperate to prove her usefulness after her arm had healed, insisted on walking the twins to the koi pond while Aiden took a business call.
Her carelessness was instantaneous.
Distracted by a notification on her phone, she let go of their hands for sixty seconds. In that window, a black van screeched onto the path, and before the guards could react, Leo and Mia were gone.
When Aiden and Anna reached the scene, Sofia was wailing, clutching her designer bag. Anna didn't offer comfort. She drew her sidearm and pressed the cold barrel directly against Sofia’s forehead.
"Anna, stop!" Aiden shouted, grabbing her wrist.
"She had one job," Anna hissed, her thumb clicking the safety off. Her eyes were voids of lethal intent. "If I don't kill her now, it's only because I don't want to waste the bullet."
She scanned the scene once, fast, precise.
Then she turned to the guards, her voice razor calm.
“Lock down every exit. Now.”
Her eyes stayed cold.
And somewhere beneath that calm, something far more dangerous had just awakened.
She lowered the gun, her hand trembling with a rage she hadn't felt in years. She pulled a burner phone from her pocket and dialed a number that hadn't been touched in three years.
"Put Valenti on," she commanded when the line picked up. When the Don’s gravelly voice came through, she didn't introduce herself. She didn't have to.
"You have my children. If you touch even a single hair on their heads, I will burn your world down. You won't know what hit you until your heart stops beating. I'm coming for you."
"Who the hell is she, Boss?" Marcus asked, watching Anna load specialized magazines into her tactical vest.
"She just threatened a Don like he was a schoolboy."
"She’s the only reason we're getting them back," Aiden replied, his face grim as he checked his own weapon.
They split up. Aiden took the main road with a tactical convoy, but Anna took the back ways. She knew every Valenti bolt hole and reinforced cellar in the city, she had mapped them out years ago as part of her "penance."
She found them in a derelict basement on the outskirts of the docks. She moved through the guards like a scythe through wheat, silent, efficient, and utterly heartless. When she kicked in the final door, she saw Leo and Mia huddled on a dirty mattress, their eyes red and puffy from crying.
The sight broke her heart, but it didn't soften her hands.
"Close your eyes, my loves," Anna said, her voice suddenly shifting back to the sweet, melodic tone of their teacher. "Close them tight and count to ten for me. We’re going to play a game."
As the children squeezed their eyes shut and began to whisper, "One... two...", Anna turned to the three kidnappers in the room. There was no trial. There were no words. She executed them with three rhythmic shots, her face a mask of iron.
By the time Aiden stormed the building, it had become a silent tomb.
He found Anna sitting on the cold floor, the lethal stillness of the room anchored by her presence.
She held both twins crushed against her chest, her voice a low, steady hum as she whispered stories of brave knights while they sobbed into her neck.
?Marcus stood in the doorway, his eyes darting from the fallen men to the woman he thought he knew.
"Boss," he rasped, his voice shaking. "Who is she? Really?"
?Aiden watched her, the blood on her hands, the tenderness in her eyes, and finally leaned in, his voice a ghost of a whisper.
?"Wraith."
?Marcus went pale, a visible shiver tracing his spine.
The name was a legend, a nightmare whispered in the underworld to keep soldiers in line.
He looked at the teacher again, realizing with terrifying clarity that they had been living under the same roof as the deadliest assassin to ever exist in their world.
Anna looked up as Aiden entered the basement. She didn't look like a teacher, and she didn't look like a ghost. She looked like a mother who had just declared war.
Across town in the Valenti manor, the Don sat in a heavy, suffocating silence.
Reports were flooding in like a tide of bad omens, the surgical wounding of his commander, the untraceable, chilling phone call, and the absolute annihilation of his extraction team.
?The pieces clicked together with a terrifying weight, forming a picture he thought had been burned to ashes years ago.
?"The Wraith isn't dead," he whispered to his advisors, the color draining from his face until it was as white as bone.
?He stared into the distance, his voice trembling with the realization of his fatal mistake.
"She’s been hiding in plain sight. And we just gave her a reason to stop hiding."