The quiet before the breach

Serena:

The night tasted like blood and gunmetal. And I liked it that way.

We stood at the edge of the industrial district—rusting steel skeletons, shuttered warehouses, and the faint hum of neon buzzing like a dying insect overhead. It was the kind of place built to keep secrets. Or bury them.

The Morettis had chosen their nest well.

But they hadn’t planned for me.

“Third floor,” Luca murmured, eyes trained on the blueprint in his hand. “Northwest corner. That’s where they’re keeping whatever’s linked to Project Lazarus. Surveillance has been static for three hours—no movement.”

“They’re either sleeping,” Nico added, slinging a silenced pistol under his arm, “or waiting for us.”

Matteo glanced at me. “What do you think, dolce vendetta?”

I cracked my knuckles. “I think they’ll wish they were dead when we’re done.”

We moved like smoke—silent, choking, and deadly.

Two guards patrolled the outer gate. Nico dispatched them before they could even radio in. A twist. A sigh. Two bodies folded into the shadows, like they were never there.

The door creaked open on rusty hinges.

We entered the belly of the beast.

Inside, it smelled of oil, copper, and something darker—fear, maybe. The kind that clings to walls long after the screaming stops.

I pressed my palm to the concrete, steadying my breath.

The file had said my mother was spotted with a Moretti captain in this location. That she’d gone willingly, but this didn’t feel like a place you walked into unless someone dragged you by the throat.

Luca took point. I followed.

Matteo ghosted behind me, his presence a hum against my spine.

And Nico—he flanked us all. Watching the rear. The wolf at the gate.

We reached the stairwell in silence. The third floor rose like a dare.

“You ready?” Matteo whispered.

I didn’t answer.

I kicked the door open instead.

It exploded inward with a metallic shriek. Chaos followed.

Two men in the hallway—guns up, mouths open in surprise. I shot first. My bullets found their marks before their lungs had time to pull in air. They fell.

Luca moved next, securing the corridor with military precision. Nico tossed a flashbang into the adjacent room—crack. Then silence.

We swept through.

The rooms were empty.

Too empty.

My stomach sank.

“Something’s wrong,” I said, scanning the hallway.

“That’s because this isn’t a stronghold,” Luca muttered, rifling through a filing cabinet. “It’s a decoy.”

Matteo swore under his breath. “They knew we’d come.”

Nico found it first.

The door at the far end. Reinforced steel, locked tight. A keypad blinked red.

“This is it,” he said. “If there’s anything left, it’s behind this door.”

I knelt beside it, fingers dancing over the keypad. The file mentioned a date. A death. The date of my mother’s obituary, the one I had printed myself.

I punched it in.

0921.

The light turned green.

The door slid open with a slow, heavy hiss.

Inside: darkness. Rows of servers hummed like a hive. Screens blinked with static. And in the center, a chair.

Occupied.

I stepped closer.

It wasn’t my mother.

It was a man.

Eyes wide, blood pooling under him. Electrodes were still attached to his temples. His mouth hung open in a frozen scream. Skin pale like wax.

A voice crackled overhead.

“Ah, so you found my little gift.”

Matteo spun. “Speaker system.”

Nico raised his gun to the ceiling. “Moretti.”

I recognized the voice.

Dante.

“Serena, always so predictable,” he drawled. “I left that file for you. Planted just enough breadcrumbs. You followed like a good little bloodhound.”

“Why?” I hissed.

“Because I needed to test you.”

His voice warped, distorted by the cheap speaker system, but the amusement behind it was unmistakable.

“To see if you had the spine for this world. And more importantly—if you had the heart for it.”

The screens lit up.

My mother’s face stared back at me.

Tied to a chair. Eyes puffy. Cheek bruised.

“She’s alive,” I whispered.

“For now,” Dante purred. “But if you want her to stay that way, you’ll come alone.”

The screen flicked to coordinates. Then static.

The speaker popped and died.

A heartbeat passed. Then another.

And then I moved.

I turned, grabbing a crowbar from the side of the server unit, and slammed it into the nearest screen. Glass exploded. Sparks hissed.

Matteo didn’t flinch. Neither did the others.

“I’m going after her,” I said. “Now.”

Luca stepped in front of me. “You heard what he said—he wants you alone.”

“He’ll kill her if I don’t.”

“He’ll kill her anyway,” Nico growled. “That’s what men like him do.”

Matteo crouched beside the corpse, still strapped to the chair. “This guy… he was an asset. You see the ID?”

He handed it to me.

Giovanni Morani.

One of our allies. One of ours.

“They tortured him,” I said. “Downloaded his memory. They’re experimenting with data transfer. Memory extraction. That’s what Project Lazarus is—bringing back intelligence from the dead.”

“And your mom?” Luca asked carefully.

I swallowed.

“She must know something they need.”

The silence that followed was heavier than grief.

Finally, Matteo stood.

“You want to go after her, dolce vendetta?”

I nodded.

“Then we make it look like you go alone.”

He turned to Luca. “Fake tracker. Dummy car. A drone with her signature.”

Luca nodded once.

Matteo met my eyes.

“Let them think they’re ahead. Let them set the stage. Then, when the time is right, we’ll burn the whole theater down.”