Chapter 44: Smoke and Steel
The city glistened with secrets beneath a silver dawn.
Rain had begun to fall light, relentless, and cold as if the sky itself had chosen to cleanse the blood and betrayal that stained its streets. From the rooftop of the abandoned textile factory on 9th and Bleeker, Marco stared at the skyline, jaw clenched, body still bruised from the estate assault.
Luca stood beside him, shoulders taut beneath his dark jacket, hands shoved deep into his pockets. The flash drive Ethan had given them lay heavy in his coat like a coiled snake dangerous, valuable, and alive.
Below them, the streets pulsed with life. Vendors opening stalls. Taxi lights flickering like dying stars. To everyone else, it was just another Tuesday.
But to Luca and Marco, it was war.
"He gave us a location," Luca said finally, his voice rough with exhaustion. "One of Victor's secondary hubs off the books. An underground processing house. Information, weapons, maybe even bodies."
"Bait," Marco said. "If I were Victor, I'd feed us something just close enough to feel real, just far enough to be a trap."
Luca nodded slowly. "Which is why we don't go in like soldiers."
Marco turned to him. "Then how?"
"Like thieves."
That night, the warehouse loomed on the edge of the industrial district quiet, inconspicuous, nestled between loading docks and stacked shipping crates. Unmarked trucks came and went, headlights slicing through the fog, their cargo unknown.
Luca and Marco arrived separately. No comms. No phones. Just instincts.
Luca slipped through the southern gate, using the old train yard as cover. Marco approached from the east, climbing onto a storage container for high ground. The plan was simple: observe, infiltrate, extract intel leave no trace.
But plans were fiction in Victor's world.
As Luca crept toward the loading bay, he spotted two guards in tactical gear patrolling lazily. Not professionals mercs. Paid muscle. That meant they didn't expect trouble.
Good.
He waited for the right moment, then moved like smoke low, silent, deadly. In one swift motion, he disabled the first guard with a rear choke and dragged him behind a stack of pallets. The second turned just in time to catch a fist to the throat and a knife to the leg, his gasp swallowed by the night.
Marco watched from above, impressed. Still sharp, he thought.
He signaled with a short, crisp whistle clear.
Luca nodded and entered through a side door.
Inside, the warehouse was a maze of steel and shadows. Flickering lights revealed crates marked with unfamiliar emblems, filing cabinets chained shut, and monitors showing surveillance footage of the city. One screen caught Luca's attention.
It was live footage… of the safehouse.
He stepped closer, his pulse spiking. The camera showed the front of the building, the alley, the rooftop. They're watching us.
Marco dropped in behind him, boots silent on the grated floor.
"They know where we are," Luca said grimly, pointing to the screen.
Marco swore under his breath. "Ethan didn't just give us intel. He gave Victor a way to confirm where we're hiding."
Luca's jaw flexed. "We have to move again. And soon."
Suddenly, a voice echoed through the warehouse's intercom system.
"Welcome, boys."
Victor.
"I was wondering when you'd show. I do love when the past comes crawling back."
Luca froze. The voice was smooth, mocking, and it came from everywhere and nowhere at once.
Marco lifted his weapon, scanning. "He's not here. He's watching."
On cue, every screen in the room blinked, showing Victor's face, seated in some other location, wine glass in hand, smirking like a man who'd already won.
"You're so predictable, Luca. Even after all these years. Always chasing ghosts. Always so... righteous." He turned slightly, gaze narrowing. "And Marco. The loyal hammer. Tell me, how does it feel, watching the man you protect lose himself?"
"Shut it," Luca growled, but Victor laughed.
"You want justice. You think this ends with a bullet? You think you're the first to try?"
The feed cut to a new screen.
A woman.
Bound. Gagged. Bloodied. Sitting in a cold metal chair.
Luca's heart nearly stopped.
It was Camila, a former contact, one of the few people who had helped them early in their investigation. She'd gone silent weeks ago. They thought she'd run. Or disappeared. But now,
"She was loyal to you," Victor cooed. "That's why she bleeds."
Luca took a step forward, fists clenched. "If you hurt her..."
"I already have," Victor said simply. "But you can still save her… if you give me what I want."
Marco stepped between Luca and the screen, voice ice-cold. "Which is?"
"The drive. And Ethan."
Luca's eyes burned. "So this was always about him."
"No," Victor said, eyes narrowing. "It's always been about you. Ethan betrayed me. But you? You made it personal."
The screens went black.
Silence returned.
Then the countdown began numbers flashing red on the largest monitor.
01:0000:5900:58...
Luca and Marco spun, scanning.
"Shit," Marco muttered. "There's a bomb in here."
They ran. Through rows of crates, through metal doors and down rusted steps. Luca grabbed a flash drive from the terminal as they passed it, anything might help later. They burst out through the back exit as the clock hit 00:07.
And then the sky exploded behind them.
Fire, smoke, glass everything swallowed by the blast.
They hit the ground hard, rolling across gravel. The shockwave thundered in their bones.
Luca sat up, coughing. "He's not playing anymore."
Marco nodded, blood on his brow. "He never was."
Back at a second safehouse across the city, Luca slammed the door behind them.
"We're out of time," he said, pacing. "He has Camila. He knows our hideouts. He wants Ethan, which means Ethan knows more than he told us."
Marco sat heavily on the couch, running a hand through his hair. "So we find him."
"We confront him," Luca snapped. "No more waiting. No more riddles."
He looked at the flash drive he'd swiped, just before the explosion. It blinked faintly in his hand.
Somewhere in that plastic shell was another truth. Another key.
Luca exhaled and looked at Marco. "Tomorrow, we go to the Danton."
"And if it's a trap?" Marco asked.
Luca's voice was calm, deadly. "Then we burn it all down."
To be continued...