Chapter 13 Bianca
BIANCA
The warehouse complex looks like a fortress in the pre-dawn darkness, but I see it as a chess board.
Seven targets.
Three buildings.
Multiple escape routes and defensive positions.
What Alessandro sees as a tactical nightmare, I see as an opportunity to demonstrate what I’m capable of when I stop overthinking and start acting.
“Phase one is complete,” I whisper into my comm, watching from my position on the adjacent rooftop as the first explosion rocks the eastern building.
Not enough to bring it down, just enough to drive the targets exactly where I want them.
“Jesus Christ, Bianca.” Alessandro’s voice crackles through the earpiece, and I can hear genuine shock underneath his professional tone. “That was surgical.”
I smirk.
It was.
The shaped charges I placed earlier created precisely the right amount of chaos—disorienting the targets without actually harming them, forcing them to abandon their defensive positions and move toward what they think is safety.
What they don’t know is that I’ve been planning their movements for the past eighteen hours, anticipating every decision they might make.
“They’re heading for the central building, just like we predicted,” I report, tracking the shadowy figures through my scope. “Seven targets confirmed. Moving to phase two.”
Alessandro’s position gives him oversight of the western approach, but the real genius of this operation isn’t our positioning.
It’s the narrative I’ve constructed around it.
By the time law enforcement arrives, this won’t look like a DeLuca family execution.
It’ll look like a gang war that got out of hand, rivals settling scores with each other until everyone was dead.
The beauty is in the details.
Different weapons for different kills, evidence planted to suggest multiple factions, even the timing designed to coincide with known territorial disputes between other crews.
Every aspect carefully orchestrated to create a story that has nothing to do with family justice.
Damn, I’m good.
Giuseppe would have just kicked down the doors and started shooting. Effective, but crude. This? This is art.
“Movement on the north side,” Alessandro reports. “Two targets attempting to flank around the shipping containers.”
I smile in the darkness. “Let them. They’re walking into the kill zone.”
The next fifteen minutes start exactly as planned but quickly spiral into chaos.
The first part goes according to plan—Alessandro takes down two targets, and I eliminate another using the planted weapons to support the false narrative.
But when we reach the central building where the remaining four targets have barricaded themselves, everything goes sideways.
The gas canisters I planted earlier aren’t working properly. Instead of creating subtle disorientation, they’re producing visible clouds that make it obvious we’re using chemical agents.
The targets realize immediately that this isn’t gang warfare—it’s a coordinated hit.
“What the fuck is that smoke?” one of them yells.
“Gas!” another shouts. “Someone’s gassing us!”
“Fuck,” I hiss into my comm as gunfire erupts from multiple positions, my heart pounding erratically. “They made us.”
“I see it,” Alessandro’s voice crackles back, but he sounds calm despite the fact that my entire plan is falling apart. “Stay low. I’m moving to flank.”
But I can’t stay low.
Two of the targets are already moving toward escape routes I hadn’t properly secured, and if they get away, the whole operation fails.
The Families will see it as proof that I can’t handle complex missions, that I’m too inexperienced to deserve their respect.
And that is not acceptable.
I make a desperate play, breaking cover to pursue the fleeing targets.
I know it’s stupid.
It’s exactly the kind of reckless move Alessandro warned me against.
But I’m still smarting from our earlier argument, still burning with the need to prove that his careful, measured approach isn’t always superior to decisive action.
And then the voices start—all of them at once, a cacophony of conflicting advice that makes my head pound.
Take them now! Giuseppe’s harsh voice roars. Show no mercy! Hunt them down!
Wait, Sophia’s voice whispers urgently. This is a trap. Use their desperation against them.
Think first! Matteo’s voice cuts through the chaos. Assess the risks. Consider your positioning.
I want to scream, clutch my head, and tell them to shut the fuck up. The overlapping commands crash together in my skull, each one demanding immediate attention, each one contradicting the others.
I can’t focus.
I can’t think clearly with all of them shouting at once.
So I do the only thing that feels natural—I follow my gut and charge after the fleeing targets, desperate to silence the chaos in my head with action.
The first target spots me immediately and opens fire.
I dive behind a shipping container as bullets spark off the metal around me, my heart hammering with the realization that I’ve fucked up badly.
This isn’t controlled anymore.
It’s a firefight, and I’m pinned down with limited ammunition and no backup plan.
My throat burns with emotion and I swallow it down. Now is not the time to absolutely lose my shit.
“Bianca, what’s your position?” Alessandro’s voice is sharp with concern.
I take a deep breath, trying to steady myself. “Pinned behind container seven,” I manage to say, trying to keep the panic out of my voice. “One—no, two targets are still mobile, heading for the north exit.”
Silence on the comm for several seconds that feel like hours.
Then: “Cover me.”
I watch through the gap between containers as Alessandro moves with lethal grace across the warehouse floor.
This isn’t the careful, planned violence we’d orchestrated earlier.
This is pure improvisation, adapting to chaos with deadly efficiency.
And if he dies, it’s all my fault.
He takes down the first fleeing target with a shot so precise it drops the man mid-stride.
The second target turns to fire at him, and Alessandro uses the muzzle flash to pinpoint his position in the darkness.
What happens next is amazing—Alessandro closes the distance in seconds, deflecting the gun barrel upward as the man fires wildly into the warehouse ceiling.
His knee drives up into the target’s side, doubling him over, then Alessandro’s elbow comes down hard on the back of his neck with a wet crack that echoes through the space.
I wince. Ouch.
The man doesn’t go down immediately, so Alessandro grabs him by the hair and slams his face into the concrete support beam once, twice, until blood streams down the gray surface and the target’s legs give out.
When the body finally crumples to the warehouse floor, there’s a spreading pool of red beneath his shattered skull.
My stomach seizes. Oh god, am I about to be sick?
My heart is hammering so hard I’m sure everyone in the warehouse can hear it.
This is nothing like the controlled execution of Vincent Torrino.
This is chaos, and I’m drowning in it.
A shadow moves across the wall to my left—one of the remaining shooters trying to flank my position.
I force myself to breathe, to think, to remember my training.
When he rounds the corner, gun raised, I’m ready.
The shot takes him dead center, and he goes down hard, his weapon skittering across the concrete.
But the muzzle flash gives away my position to whoever else is still alive in here.
“There! Behind the crates!” a voice shouts from somewhere in the darkness.
Fuck.
Bullets immediately start chewing up the wood around my head, splinters raining down as I press myself flat against the floor.
My hands are shaking now—actually fucking shaking—as I try to reload.
“Alessandro,” I whisper into my comm, hating how breathless I sound. “I’m pinned. There’s at least one more, maybe two.”
“I see him,” Alessandro’s voice crackles back. “Northeast corner, elevated position. He’s got clear sightlines to both exits.”
Fuck.
We’re trapped, and it’s my fault.
My brilliant plan to prove Alessandro wrong has turned into exactly the kind of clusterfuck he warned me about.
Every second we’re stuck here increases the chance that neighbors called the cops, that sirens are already screaming toward this warehouse.
“Can you get a clean shot?” I ask, trying to keep the panic out of my voice.
“Negative. His positioning is too good.”
I need to fix this and fast. I can’t show failure to the Families. “I can get him,” I whisper into the comm, “but I need a distraction.”
“Negative. Hold position,” he orders.
“Alessandro, we’re running out of time—”
“I said hold position.”
Something in his voice makes me freeze.
Not anger, but absolute authority—the kind of command that brooks no argument.
For the first time since we started working together, he’s not treating me as an equal partner.
He’s taking control.
What happens next takes my breath away.
Alessandro creates a series of diversions using the warehouse equipment.
He topples storage units, triggering fire suppression systems, even using the building’s electrical system to create strategic blackouts.
Each distraction moves the final target exactly where Alessandro wants him, until the man is positioned perfectly for elimination.
The final kill is clean, professional, and staged to support our original false narrative despite everything that went wrong.
When Alessandro’s voice comes through with “Target down, scene secured,” I nearly sob with relief.
My legs are shaking as I emerge from behind the crates, and I have to grip the concrete wall to steady myself before I can move.
The staging feels surreal after the chaos of actual combat.
We work in tense silence, positioning corpses to create the illusion that they killed each other—placing weapons in dead hands, adjusting blood spatter patterns, creating powder burns that tell the story of close-quarters betrayal.
Alessandro’s movements are methodical and practiced, like he’s done this before.