61. CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
Luca
The night before, Luca barely slept. He stretched out on the threadbare mattress in his windowless room, hands stacked behind his head, watching the circle of dim light flicker on the ceiling as if it might tell him something new.
He catalogued the plans, the blueprints, the angles of entry and lines of sight, but beneath the mental discipline ran a thin current of near-electric anticipation.
He knew this was his element: controlled violence executed with precision, a tempo of motion and silence that made his heartbeat slow, not quicken.
They rolled out well before the city reanimated.
The world was empty, undefined. Streetlamps flickered, casting the industrial district in alternating bands of orange and black, and the only moving things were the shadows of the Moretti convoy as they wove around defunct semis and silent warehouses.
The air shifted along the river. Even the stray dogs sensed something in the atmosphere, and vanished into alleys as the convoy passed.
Luca rode shotgun in the lead car, his eyes never static. He watched the side-mirrors, the rooftops, the slumped shapes of trash bins along every approach. He was not paranoid, just prepared. If you had seen what he saw in the last war, you would not trust anything quieter than yourself.
The target was a Vescari supply depot—a concrete bunker built into the side of a vacant lot, no windows, just a rolling garage door and two men smoking under the flickering bulb.
Standard protocol: shift change at 4:00, guards staggered by ten minutes, no expectation of surprise.
The kind of routine that kills, if you lived long enough.
In the back seat, Rico cracked his knuckles and grinned a replica of his own mug shot. “You want to be loud or quiet?” he stage-whispered.
Luca shrugged. “Quiet first. Loud after. As always.”
Elena checked the suppressor on her sidearm and offered a noncommittal smile. She’d done this longer than either of them, and knew the value of saving energy for the aftermath.
They parked in a drainage ditch two blocks out, then filtered toward the depot under cover of chain-link fence and stacked pallets.
Rico took the arc to the left, disappearing into the shadow geometry.
Elena ghosted right, moving with the kind of compact efficiency that made her almost invisible.
Luca advanced straight on, his mind already past the next five seconds.
The first guard never saw Rico; a single, crisp phut and the man’s knees buckled, a surprised exhalation lost in the cold. Elena’s approach was a ballet of momentum and restraint: she caught the second man’s head in the crook of her elbow, twisted, and let him down so gently he looked asleep.
One more—Luca clocked the last sentry inside the alcove by the entrance, backlighted by a blue screen.
He closed the distance with three silent steps and struck with the hard edge of his palm, the way he’d practiced on sandbags as a kid.
The man dropped, no sound but the tap of his skull on the concrete step.
Elena already had the door panel open, hands moving with surgeon’s precision. She planted the first set of charges in the electrical bay, the second in the junction just past the service corridor. Rico covered her, checking the corners, eyes bright as a kid on Christmas morning.
“Timer set,” Elena announced, her voice glassy and precise. “Two minutes.”
“Move.” Luca didn’t need to say it twice. They peeled back the way they came, retracing steps with double speed.
At the edge of the lot, Rico pivoted for one last look. “That’s a lot of product in the yard,” he mused. “You think they’ll miss it?”
“I hope they have insurance,” Elena replied, already pulling herself over a fence.
They were twelve paces from the car when the explosion hit.
It was less a sound than a force, a percussive slap that rolled over the block and turned the depot’s windows into shooting stars.
The garage door sailed off its hinges, cash and powder and burnt insulation raining down in a single, perfect moment of chaos. They didn’t stop to admire the view.
As they loaded up, Rico whooped and punched the roof of the car. “That’s one,” he crowed, adrenaline making his voice go helium-light.
Luca checked the rearview, then his watch. “Next,” he said.
The second target was a warehouse down by the docks, a place so nondescript it didn’t even have a sign.
The Vescari used it for cash laundering and weapons storage—the kind of asset that, if lost, would take months to replace.
They scoped the building first: six Vescari soldiers, two more inside an office playing cards, the rest on rotation.
Multiple points of entry, all reinforced; but there was a vent shaft behind the dumpster, just big enough for Elena if she disassembled her rifle.
She did, quick as sleight of hand, and vanished into the vent with barely a scrape.
Rico and Luca circled to the loading-bay entrance, where a single guard thumbed through his phone.
Rico tapped him on the shoulder—almost politely—and when the man looked up, the hilt of Rico’s knife went straight into his windpipe.
Inside, the air smelled like cold metal and bleach and stale cigarette smoke.
Elena was already on the rafters, moving above the stacks of cash and boxes marked CLEANING SUPPLIES in cheap black marker.
Luca counted the steps, waited for the two card players to start fighting over a hand, and then entered with a kind of focused rage.
The first Vescari got two rounds in the chest, the second barely made it to his feet before Elena dropped from the ceiling and broke his neck.
Rico handled the three in the loading bay, knife work fast and quiet, until the last one ran and made it five meters before Luca tackled him and introduced his face to the concrete.
They swept the warehouse in less than thirty seconds. When it was over, only the sound of Elena’s steady breathing and the faint crackle of a radio remained.
She walked to the center of the room, struck a match, and lit the fuse on the incendiary charge. “Goodbye, money,” she whispered, and for a moment there was something almost gentle in her face.
They exited through the back stair, the building already starting to glow with the promise of controlled disaster. By the time they reached the car, the warehouse was a bonfire against the morning, flames so bright they demanded to be seen.
“Two for two,” Rico exhaled, rolling his shoulders. “We’re going to put them out of business by lunch.”
Luca scanned the horizon. He could feel the city’s pulse begin to change. “Third’s the charm,” he said, and dialed up the next target.
The final hit was personal: Rossi’s current safehouse on the west end, where the man had holed up in anticipation of exactly this kind of pressure. He’d bunkered down, triple-locked every door, and hired a rotating crew of bodyguards just loyal enough to die for a day’s pay.
Luca walked the perimeter on foot, memorizing the guard shifts. Rico and Elena waited on the rooftops, covering angles. There were two outside, four in the main room, and Rossi on the second floor. If you didn’t know where to look, you’d think it was overkill. Luca knew better.
He approached as a delivery driver, box in hand, and let the front guard frisk him.
The man was efficient, bored, and not expecting anyone to try anything in broad daylight.
Luca let himself be patted down, then spun on his heel and drove the box into the man’s gut, doubling him over.
Rico sniped the second guard from the opposite rooftop—a clean shot, no fuss.
Inside, the entry hall was cramped and hot, the walls thick with old cigarette residue and the sour tang of spilled liquor.
Luca moved toward the engine noise he heard in the back—generators, probably powering backup comms—and found two men in folding chairs, arguing over a soccer game.
They both looked up at once, mouths opening, but only one managed a syllable before Luca’s suppressed pistol ended the conversation.
He checked his watch: thirty seconds to entry.
He could hear fighting already, Elena and Rico worked fast and surgical on the upper floors.
There were three more gunshots, a scream, then a heavy thump as someone fell down the steps.
Luca found Rossi’s office at the end of the hall, the door cracked open, the man inside yelling into a burner phone.
“—just get me a car, I don’t care how—” Rossi’s eyes went wide as Luca stepped in. The man reached for his own weapon, but his aim was wild and desperate. The first shot flew into the drywall. Luca’s returned fire tagged Rossi in the shoulder, spinning him into the desk.
Rossi didn’t stop. He dropped the phone and lurched for the window, shattering the glass