Chapter 21 #2
Gabe pulls it up. "Every hour. Every ninety seconds, there is some weird power fluctuation."
I narrow my eyes. "That's not a fault."
"No," Gabe agrees. "We thought it was at first. Grid instability. But it's too clean. Too consistent."
"So something switches," I propose. "On purpose."
"Or something opens," Gabe counters.
I don't look at him, but my mouth curves slightly. "Find out."
I shift focus inward. Interior layouts. Residential wing. Operational wing. Aurelio keeps them separate, smart again. Silvestre isn't on-site full-time, but intel says he'll be there tonight.
"They're consolidating," Gabe says. "Too many eyes on them. Too much heat."
"They know someone's coming," I predict.
"They don't know who."
I tap the image of the main gate. "We don't go through the front."
"Obviously."
"We don't hit the perimeter at all," I continue. "Too loud. Too slow. They'll move the kid the second the alarms trip."
Gabe nods. "So we wait for movement."
"No," I correct. "We force it."
I bring up another screen, local infrastructure. Old maps layered over new ones. My finger traces lines most people would ignore.
"Compounds like this don't exist in isolation," I say. "They rely on something. Water. Power. Waste. You cut one, the others react."
"Power's too obvious," Gabe says. "They'll have backup."
"Exactly," I reply. "Which means the switch matters."
Gabe exhales slowly. "So we watch the cycle."
"We exploit it," I nod. "Ninety seconds isn't an accident. It's a window."
"But we don't know where it opens," Gabe says. "Yet."
I straighten. "Then we build everything else around that unknown."
He looks at me. Waiting.
"Teams staged, not committed," I continue. "Silent insertion options only. No explosions. No gunfire until we're inside."
"And the kid?"
"Primary objective," I say flatly. "Alive. Untouched. Everything else is secondary."
Gabe hesitates. "And the men holding him?"
I meet his eyes. "They live until he's breathing safe air."
That settles it. Gabe nods once. Loyal. Ruthless. Clear.
"So," he says, glancing back at the power data, "we're missing one piece."
"Yes," I agree. "But we know where it belongs."
I turn back to the screens, to the compound, to the steady pulse of that ninety-second fluctuation. Gabe is about to say something when my phone vibrates. Damiano.
The name alone tightens something in my chest. He doesn't call unless it matters. I take it. "Talk."
"Boss," he sounds clipped and strained. "We have a complication."
I don't look away from the screens. "Define."
A beat. Then, "New York has arrived in Caracas."
That gets my attention. "New York?"
"In Caracas," he confirms. "Just landed. Private arrival. Two names you're going to want to hear."
I straighten. "I'm listening."
"Stephano Conti and Raffael DeSantis."
For a fraction of a second, everything goes still.
Then my mind starts moving. Conti first. Stephano Conti isn't a capo yet.
His father, Gustave Conti, still holds that seat.
Old-school. Careful. Their family doesn't run territory or muscle; they run fraud and cybercrime.
Digital pipelines. Financial ghosts. The kind of money that never touches hands.
From what I know, Stephano is the real weapon.
One of the best programmers in their circle.
Quiet. Precise. Dangerous in a way that doesn't leave bodies until it's far too late.
He doesn't pull triggers; he reroutes consequences.
If he's in Caracas, someone needs something erased, rerouted, or made untraceable.
Then there is DeSantis.
Raffael DeSantis is newer. A shadow that didn't exist six months ago and now casts a long one.
My intel is incomplete, but enough of the pieces line up to make him interesting and dangerous.
Before he became a capo, he ran a vigilante outfit called Umbra Arcana—the hidden truths.
Dramatic name. Effective execution. He built it to expose rot—cartels, traffickers, corrupt officials—then burned what he found.
He recently married Sophia Giuliano, widow of a Giordano capo, and took over the branch.
Drugs. Prostitution. Human trafficking. Except—according to every report worth trusting—human trafficking is effectively shut down.
Prostitution dismantled. The money streams redirected or killed outright.
And Sophia's first husband?
DeSantis killed him. Not in a power grab.
Not for territory. Because the man was abusing his wife.
That detail sticks. DeSantis doesn't operate like a traditional mobster.
He doesn't tolerate mess. Or hypocrisy. Or men who mistake power for entitlement.
Which makes one thing very clear. If he's here, this isn't about money.
I listen as Damiano relays their movements, instruct him to continue surveillance, and end the call.
I look at Gabe. He's already piecing it together.
"This isn't a turf war," he concludes.
"No," I agree. "It's a convergence."
Conti brings infrastructure. DeSantis brings execution. Together, they don't destabilize cities; they surgically remove what doesn't belong. I look back at the compound on the screen. At the layers of security. At the careful arrogance of it. Then I think about what isn't happening.
Valverde didn't send anyone to the airport. No welcoming committee. No armored convoy. No public show of alliance. Conti and DeSantis landed quietly and disappeared into the city like men who weren't expected or wanted. And they're not staying anywhere that matters.
Second-rate hotel. Mid-tier security. The kind of place you choose when you don't want to be seen, and you don't want anyone mistaking you for a guest. That's not hospitality. That's distance.
Valverde keeps allies close. Enemies closer. But outsiders? He makes a point of reminding them whose ground they're standing on. He didn't do that this time.
Which tells me two things.
First: Conti and DeSantis didn't come at his invitation.
Second: Valverde knows they're here.
But he doesn't want them under his roof.
I don't say it out loud yet. I don't need to. Gabe's eyes narrow in the same direction my thoughts are going. I sit back, steepling my fingers, watching the power cycle blink again on the screen. Ninety seconds. Like a heartbeat.
"If they were negotiating," I continue, "they'd be housed like kings. If they were partners, Valverde would be showing them off."
"And if they were targets," Gabe finishes, "they'd stay invisible."
I nod once. That explains the hotel. The silence.
The separation. Conti doesn't put himself in a position where he can be controlled.
DeSantis doesn't sleep under the same roof as the man he might have to kill.
Which means Valverde isn't just holding my son, he's pissed off a lot of other people.
I glance back at the compound on the screen.
At the power cycle. At the unseen door we haven't located yet.
"So," Gabe states carefully, "they're not here for you."
"No," I reply. "But we're about to be in each other's way."
And that makes this dangerous. Because men like Conti and DeSantis don't go to war unless someone makes a mistake large enough to attract predators.
I intend to make sure that mistake isn't mine.
I don't like sharing a battlefield. But if Conti and DeSantis think they walked into Caracas to run the board, they're about to learn whose game this actually is.