UNDER THE DON’S PROTECTION의 모든 챕터: 챕터 161 - 챕터 170

Amara’s POVAbuja is breathing heavy tonight—humid air thick with diesel and grilled meat from the night markets, generators coughing in the distance like old men refusing to die. The target’s name is Victor Okoye—forty-eight, former banker turned shadow financier for half the Clean Slate’s operations in West Africa. Gideon’s money man in the capital. He handles the crypto wallets, the shell companies, the bribes that keep the machine oiled. If we cut him, we cut the blood supply.We don’t plan to kill him. Not yet. We plan to take everything he knows.The house is in Maitama—gated compound, high walls topped with razor wire, two guards at the front gate, CCTV on every corner. Inside: marble floors, imported furniture, a wife who travels often, two teenage sons at boarding school in London. Victor lives alone most nights. Tonight is one of those nights.We move at 23:47.Tunde drives the nondescript Toyota Corolla—windows tinted black, plates swapped twice on the way. I sit shotgun—po

Amara’s POVThe flight to Singapore is 14 hours and 22 minutes of recycled air, turbulence, and silence between the four of us: Leo, Zara, Tunde, and me. Kai and Elena stay behind in Abuja—remote eyes, running interference on every digital footprint we leave. The vial never leaves my chest. The pouch is now sewn into a custom vest under my hoodie—lead-lined, biometric-locked, heartbeat-triggered dead-man switch synced to Elena’s tablet. If my pulse flatlines for more than 30 seconds, the vial’s casing ignites. No recovery. No reverse-engineering. Just ash.We land at Changi at 08:14 local time. No customs drama—Kai’s forged documents hold. We split immediately: Leo and Zara take a taxi to a budget hotel in Geylang (good cover, lots of foot traffic), Tunde and I rent a nondescript white Toyota from a cash-only lot near the airport. We drive straight to the Jurong Island biotech corridor—NexGen BioLabs’ registered address.The facility is smaller than I expected. Not a gleaming fortress

Amara’s POV (Papa Luca’s Memory)I’m twelve. The sun is low, turning the lagoon copper and gold. The air smells of salt, lemongrass, and the faint smoke from Rocco’s grill on the deck behind us. Papa Luca sits beside me on the edge of the dock—legs dangling over the water, bare feet brushing the surface every time a small wave rolls in. He’s holding the little folding knife he gave me last birthday—the one with the bone handle he carved my initials into himself: A.M.He’s teaching me how to fillet snapper. The fish lies between us on a flat board—still twitching faintly, scales catching the light like scattered coins. He’s already made the first cut—clean, precise, down the belly, gills to tail. Now it’s my turn.“Hold it like this,” he says—guiding my small fingers around the handle. His hand is big, scarred, warm. “Not too tight. Not too loose. Feel the balance. The knife wants to work for you, but only if you let it.”I try. The blade slips—tears the flesh instead of slicing. The f

Amara’s POVThe trawler’s engine cuts with a final cough at 400 meters out. I slip into the water—warm, black, silent. The rebreather tastes of rubber and calm. The pouch is sewn tight against my chest—lead-lined, heartbeat-triggered, dead-man switch synced to Elena’s tablet three thousand kilometers away. If my pulse flatlines for more than thirty seconds, the vial’s casing ignites. No recovery. No reverse-engineering. Just ash.I surface behind the northern mangrove thicket—the exact spot Papa Luca used to hide the emergency raft when storms came. The atoll is too quiet. No children laughing. No swing creaking. No Rocco’s low voice calling from the garden. The drone feed in my earpiece shows six black-clad figures moving through the bougainvillea—Gideon’s advance team. They arrived ahead of the main boats. Two are at the dock—setting charges on the pilings. Two more are inside the bungalow—rifling drawers, overturning mattresses, looking for a vial they think we left behind.I move

– Amara’s POVThe trawler drifts without power, engine cold, hull rocking gently in the black swell. I’m still in the water—rebreather hissing soft, night-vision painting the world green and gray. The atoll is 380 meters ahead: silver bungalow on stilts, garden spilling over railings like spilled ink, three driftwood crosses on the dock catching faint moonlight. Gideon’s body is gone—sunk where the tide took him. The detonator is at the bottom. The charges are disarmed. The island is safe.But the silence is wrong.No Leo shouting from the dock. No Zara’s low curse as she checks sightlines. No Kai’s voice in my earpiece updating drone feeds. Only static—thin, crackling, like someone is breathing on the other end and refusing to speak.I surface slow behind the mangroves. Peel the rebreather. Listen.Nothing.The drone feed in my ear is dead. Elena’s tablet link is gone. The heartbeat switch on the vial pouch is still green—my pulse is steady—but the secondary comms are dark.I move.K