Chapter four: They found us

“Get down!” Luciano shouted again, diving toward me.

I dropped to the floor as glass exploded across the room. Another shot rang out, then two more. Bullets slammed into the wall above my head, sending plaster raining down.

“Stay low!” he barked, crawling closer while firing back through the broken window. His gunshots were deafening in the closed space.

I grabbed the lamp from the side table and smashed it, killing the lights. “How did they find us so fast?”

“Well, how do you expect me to know,” he growled, reloading with quick, practiced movements. “Move toward the hallway. Now!”

I crawled fast on my elbows, heart slamming against the cold marble. Luciano stayed right behind me, his body shielding mine as we made it into the darker corridor. More gunfire tore through the living room. A bullet whistled past my ear so close I felt the heat.

“Who the hell is this Swan?” I whispered harshly, pressing my back against the wall. “They knew exactly where we were.”

Luciano checked his phone, face tight with anger. “Just be quiet, back up is on the way. We stay here for five minutes.”

I could hear footsteps outside. “They’re coming in. We can’t just sit here waiting to die.”

He looked at me, eyes hard but something else there too. Respect, maybe. “You know how to use one of these?”

I snatched the spare gun from his waistband. “Point and shoot. I’ve been around this life long enough.”

A loud crash came from the front as they kicked in what was left of the door. Luciano pulled me up and we moved deeper into the safehouse, backs against the wall.

“Stay behind me,” he ordered.

“Like hell,” I shot back. “I’m not some damsel. They came for both of us.”

We rounded the corner into a narrow hall. Two masked men burst through the side entrance. Luciano fired twice. One dropped. I squeezed the trigger on the second man, the recoil jolting my arms. He stumbled but kept coming.

Luciano finished him with one clean shot.

“Clear?” I asked, breathing fast.

“For now.” He grabbed my arm and pulled me toward a reinforced panic room at the end of the hall. “Inside. Quick.”

We slipped in and he sealed the heavy door. The silence inside was sudden and heavy. Just our breathing and the distant sounds of fighting outside.

I wiped sweat and plaster dust from my face. “This is insane. I planned one public takedown and now we’re fighting off killers.”

Luciano checked the small monitors on the wall. His men had arrived outside and were clearing the rest. “Not amateurs, professionals. Military-grade equipment. Someone spent serious money to hit us tonight.”

For the first time, he looked exhausted . “How could they know the location.” He turned to face me fully, “this means we have a rat inside one of our organizations, or maybe both.”

We stayed quiet for a minute. I could still hear my pulse in my ears.

Luciano finally spoke. “Right now… I need your help and you clearly need mine.”

I looked up at him. “You want us to work together? After everything?”

“What choice do we have?” He sat across from me, elbows on his knees. “Your so-called peace event you planned, exposed me. Now my enemies used it to attack me. If we keep fighting each other, this Swan person wins without even lifting another finger.”

I thought about my mother. The stories. The hatred I’d carried since I was a teenager. “How can I work with someone whom I still believe killed my mom.”

“And I believe your family has done plenty of killing too,” he replied evenly. “But tonight isn’t about old blood. It’s about staying alive.”

My hands were still shaking from the fight. I set the gun down. “On one condition. We share everything we find. No secrets. The second we know who the Swan is, we go our separate ways.”

Luciano nodded slowly. “Deal. But you stay here until it’s safe. No running off to your father half-cocked.”

I almost argued, but the sound of more gunfire outside stopped me. “Fine. For now.”

His men finally gave the all-clear. We stepped out carefully. The living room was destroyed glass everywhere, bullet holes in the walls, blood on the floor.

One of Luciano’s men, a tall guy with a scar across his cheek named Marco, came in. “Three attackers down. No IDs. But they left this.”

He held up a single black feather.

Luciano took it, turning it slowly in his fingers. “Black Swan.”

Marco nodded. “They’re organized, boss. And they knew this location.”

Luciano looked at me. “We stick to the previous plan, we start digging at sunrise. Accounts, old contacts, anyone who benefits from both families at war. You work with me on this, Seraphina?”

I met his eyes. “I want answers more than I want you dead right now. So yes.”

He gave a small, tired smirk. “That’s Progress.”

The rest of the night passed in a blur of calls and security checks. By morning, we sat at the kitchen island with coffee and laptops. Sunlight streamed through the broken windows, making the destruction look even worse.

“We need better security,” I said, typing on my computer. “And I want to check my own sources. My cousin in New York might know something.”

Luciano watched me over his mug. “Go ahead. But we do this together. No solo moves.”

I rolled my eyes. “Bossy.”

“You like it,” he said quietly.

“I hate it,” I fired back, but there was no real heat left in my voice.

We kept working side by side. The hatred was still there, simmering underneath. But something else was building too. A reluctant respect. The feeling that maybe, just maybe, we weren’t completely alone in this fight.

Then my laptop pinged with a new encrypted message.

I opened it.

A live camera feed showed the outside of the safehouse. Someone was watching us right now, in real time.

“ Luciano…” I whispered, turning the screen toward him.

The feed went dead.

Luciano slammed his fist on the counter. “They’re in the damn systems.”

I stared at the blank screen, a cold feeling spreading through my chest.

Whoever this Swan was, they weren’t just coming after us.

They were a step ahead.