Nobela ni Sinachi

The granite planter was cold, rough, and unforgiving against my back. I was trapped, pinned down less by the smoke Marco had created and more by the immense, crushing reality of the labor seizing my body. The dark stain on the marble floor confirmed the rupture, and the agony that followed was no longer a wave, but a constant, grinding pressure that stole all rational thought.I bit down on the fabric of my gown, muffling the animal sounds of my pain, forcing myself to focus on the sound of the fight just beyond the gray smoke curtain. I could hear Marco—the guard who chose decency over profit—shouting in Spanish, followed by the sickening sounds of struggle and impact. He was fighting three, maybe four men. He was buying me seconds with his life. He is dying for me. A stranger. A man who needed to believe in one final, pure act of defiance before his contract ended. I told him I would make it to the noise, and now I am here, bleeding, useless, listening to his noble sacrifice become

The villa was an inferno of orchestrated sound. The initial distraction—the C4 charges on the west wing—had served its purpose, drawing the bulk of Damon Salvatore's mercenaries toward the surface perimeter. But now, as Vladimir tore through the sub-level toward the medical bay, the Italian command unit had to hold the line, ensuring that this flank remained secure and that Salvatore's desperate reserves didn't cut off Vladimir’s escape route.I stood on the hillside, a slight elevation overlooking the villa's main approach road, with my two brothers, Rocco and Enzo, flanking me. We were the anchor, the wall that the enemy would break against. My earpiece crackled with Alexander’s frantic, unnecessary warning:"Vova is breaching the medical bay from below. He is going off-plan. Secure the surface corridor, Domenico! Do not let them close the door behind him!""We know the plan, Alexander," I replied, my voice calm, flat. The chaos was not a detriment; it was a distraction I could use.

The tunnel was a blinding chaos of tactical light and suffocating, sulfurous smoke. We were deep inside the conduit now, running a gauntlet of desperate, terrified men who had realized too late that their employer had abandoned them. The fight was brutal, confined, and utterly devoid of mercy.I moved at the front, my movements less those of a man and more those of an automated, perfectly calibrated weapon. The coordinates of the villa’s primary infirmary—the junction where Isabella was held—were burned into my prefrontal cortex: 48.67N, 24.33E, Sub-Level 3. Everything else was noise, interference, and obstacle.A mercenary, his face a terrified blur in the strobing light of my rifle-mounted beam, emerged from a lateral passage, screaming something in Spanish. I didn't register the words, only the threat.Threat neutralized.The sound of the shot was muffled, absorbed by the stone walls, but the man’s collapse was sickeningly loud.“Forward!” I barked into the comms, my voice raw, the

The service passage was a vertical labyrinth of rusted pipework and narrow, crumbling concrete steps—a forgotten artery of the villa, choked with dust and stale, metallic air. The noise of the war was immense now, not just the far-off roar of the siege, but the sharp, echoing cracks of automatic fire and the terrible, wet sounds of close-quarters combat tearing through the air vents from the sub-levels below.Marco secured the flimsy, hinged door behind us and turned, his face a grim, resolute mask. He was breathing heavily, the adrenaline from the execution of Reyes wearing off, leaving behind a cold, necessary focus.“We go up, Signora,” Marco whispered, his voice hoarse. “This shaft leads to the staff quarters on the main level. It’s tight. You must follow my lead exactly. No noise. Only movement.”I leaned against the rough, cold concrete, trying to draw a steadying breath that the contraction seizing my abdomen refused to allow. It felt less like a wave and more like two opposing

The corridor outside the medical bay was a blinding contrast to the clinical white room—a long, shadowed passage, dimly lit by a single, failing emergency light that cast the peeling plaster walls in sickly, shifting hues of red and gray. I crawled, dragging my heavy body across the marble floor, the cold seeping through my thin gown, a constant, brutal reminder of my vulnerability.The pain of the contractions was immense now, a crushing, tightening vice that forced small, involuntary moans from my throat. But the physical agony was secondary to the fear. I was moving away from the safe, sterile place toward the sounds of war, trusting that the growing noise meant my husband was closer than the enemy.I have to get to the main hall. I have to be visible. If I hide, Damon's men will retrieve me and force the doctor’s hand. I have to be the focus of the battle, not the prize.I rounded a corner, my breath coming in ragged gasps, when the figure emerged from the stairwell ahead, moving

The sterile white room felt colder than ever. The clinical lights seemed to press down on me, magnifying the fear I was fighting to keep contained. Damon had been gone for perhaps fifteen minutes, but the silence he left behind was heavy, charged with his threat—the promise of a medical "mistake" that would shatter my second son. Dr. Costa, the gaunt obstetrician, was still trembling, his hands hovering uselessly over the monitoring equipment. He was clearly a victim, not an accomplice, his fear a mirror of my own.The rhythmic, agonizing pressure in my belly was becoming constant now. There were no longer "breaks" between the contractions, only varying intensities of pain. The first twin, thankfully, was in good condition, but the second was an immense, terrifying gamble, precisely as Damon had intended.I closed my eyes, focusing on the strong, rapid thump-thump-thump of the first heartbeat, and the slightly muffled, frantic pulse of the second, trapped twin.I will not sign the pap