All Chapters of Kiss Me While The World Burns: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

152 Chapters

Cold Steel

Giordano let out a groan as his eyes fluttered open. His surroundings didn’t look like the expensive lounge of the Aces and Ales bar, nor did they resemble the glaring red of the high-security EMP vault. Instead, the room was stripped bare, cast in a suffocating, low-voltage darkness that smelled heavily of rust, damp concrete, and stagnant water. It was a glorified dungeon, and he was the center attraction. "Finally," Victoria’s taunting voice rang out from the shadows, dripping with a cold, dangerous amusement. "I was starting to think you were going to remain unconscious forever, Salvatore. And I really hate wasting a good interrogation on a sleeping man. It completely ruins the vibe." Giordano twitched his left eye, a sharp, blinding throb radiating straight from the back of his skull down to his jaw. He tried to shift his weight, but the unforgiving bite of leather bindings anchored his wrists securely behind a rusted industrial chair. His shirt was missing, the freezi

Ash and Dust

The world came back in raw pieces. Dirt, rocks, and the chemical sting of burning plastic. Victoria coughed hard, a violent hack that brought up black soot from her throat. She rolled onto her side on the wet asphalt, her palms scraping raw against the glass-littered ground. Her head was pounding with a loud, ringing noise that made it hard to think. "Fuck," Giordano muttered nearby. He was on his knees, clutching his left side. His chest was covered in black grime, and blood was leaking through his fingers from a deep cut across his ribs. A piece of flying metal had caught him during the scramble up the stairs. "Fuck. That was no gas leak." "Shut up," Victoria choked out, pushing herself into a sit. Her dark robe was torn to shreds at the bottom, soaked in dirty water and ash. She looked toward the front of the alley. Aces and Ales was gone. The entire building was just a hollow shell throwing thick orange flames and heavy black smoke into the gray morning air. The blast had shat

Smoke and Stitches

With a sharp wave, Vance turned around and told her men to clear the perimeter, look for survivors, and get their statements. Just as she took another step, she looked over her shoulder and told Victoria that she had to go to the station to drop her statement. Without waiting for Victoria to reply, Vance left. Victoria scowled as she watched the captain's back. She turned to face a bald bouncer standing near the rubble and jerked her chin toward the street. "Go with Vance. Drop the statement. Keep it simple, keep it legal, and don't tell them a damn thing." The man nodded, his face blank. "Yes, boss." With that, he turned and walked toward the police line. Victoria wiped a thick layer of gray dust off her outfit, her chest tightening as she looked back at the smoking ruins of Aces and Ales. Her fingers curled into tight fists. She gritted her teeth, the fury boiling right behind her eyes. When she found out who was responsible for this mess, when she found the person who da

Smoke and Stitches 2.

Giordano rolled his eyes, leaning his head back against the hard pillow as the painkiller started to dull the sharp stab in his side. "Yeah. I can tell. You're real sweet, kid." Tex didn't appreciate the attitude. He deliberately tightened his grip on Giordano's injury, pressing down on the torn flesh just hard enough to make the billionaire flinch and gasp for air. Tex leaned in close, his orange hair practically touching Giordano's face. "I'm serious. If I find out that you brought any tracking devices, any syndicates, or any of your corporate enemies down on Victoria, I will personally kill you on this table and make it look like a medical complication. Do you understand me?" Despite the burning pain in his side, Giordano smirked provocatively, a dark, arrogant spark flashing in his eyes. He opened his mouth, completely ready to deliver a snappy retort that would probably get him stabbed with a scalpel, but Bruce sharply cut in before he could start a war. "Boss, please,"

Deep Water

The word Siberia hung in the cold morning air, heavy and ridiculous. Giordano didn't move for a second, his hands still gripping the edge of the stretcher inside the van. "Siberia? That’s a frozen graveyard. Nobody routes high-end weapons tech through a dead Soviet server unless they already have a buyer on the ground." "Which means my EMP is already moving," Victoria said, her voice dropping into a dangerous, flat register. "And I don't intend to let it leave the continent." A sudden gust of wind swept through the gravel yard, whipping the raw, smoky smell of her ruined club right back into her face. The morning sun was climbing higher, cutting through the gray smog with a harsh, blinding glare that made her eyes burn. Before Giordano could retort, the heavy satellite phone in Victoria’s jacket pocket began to buzz violently. It wasn't her usual burner; it was the secure, hard-encrypted line reserved for the inner circle of her syndicate operations. Beside her, Kany instantly wen

Safe House

Bruce scrambled over, quickly handing Giordano the wireless earpiece. Giordano took his place in front of the lens, his posture instantly shifting from a battered survivor to a perfectly composed, flawless tech mogul as the digital countdown on the screen hit zero. The rotating blue crest of the Nordic Defense Council vanished, replaced by a split-screen matrix of four high-ranking ministers sitting in windowless briefing rooms across Europe. "Salvatore," Minister Vance grunted, his image broadcasting from a secure bunker in Oslo. "You’re late. The cryptographic handshake was scheduled for twelve minutes ago. We were about to flag your terminal as compromised." "An infrastructure glitch at the Zurich data center," Giordano said, his voice smooth, authoritative, and completely devoid of the strain ripping through his ribs. He didn't blink, his face a flawless mask of corporate arrogance. "The localized fire wall took a minor hit during a routine server migration. It's handled. The en

White Out

The wheels of the armored private jet slammed onto the icy tarmac with a deafening, metallic screech that vibrated straight through Victoria's boots. Outside, a brutal Siberian blizzard was tearing across the runway, a blinding white wall of sheet ice hammering against the fuselage. The hangar doors ahead slugged open, revealing a cavern of dimly lit concrete carved directly into the mountain. The jet taxied inside, the massive steel doors sealing shut behind them and cutting off the worst of the storm's roar, though the freezing air still whistled violently through the seals. "Two minutes!" Kany called out from the cockpit door. Her face was flushed red from the cabin pressure, her thumb nervously flicking the safety catch on her sidearm. "Local team is on the goddamn floor. Gear up!" Victoria didn't answer. She pulled the heavy zipper of her matte-black tactical winter coat up to her chin, the stiff nylon scratching against her jaw. She snapped her insulated combat gloves tight, t

White Out 2

Suddenly, a massive, armored transport truck slammed through the secondary service doors, its high-beams blinding them as its tires screeched against the ice. The back doors flew open. Four mercenaries in white tactical gear leaped out, the barrels of their short shotguns already raised. One of them leveled his sight straight at Victoria's exposed side. Giordano didn't hesitate. He stepped out into the open line of fire, his teeth bared as a sharp flare of pain shot through his stitched side. He pressed his eye to the thermal scope. Through the swirling gray smoke, three bright orange heat signatures glowed on his lens. Thud. Thud. Thud. The rifle kicked hard against his shoulder, but his hands stayed perfectly still. The mercenary targeting Victoria took a round directly to the face, his helmet splitting with a sharp metallic ping, while the other two dropped instantly into the snow. "Nice shooting, tech boy!" Tex yelled, his tone a mix of reluctant respect and pure adrenaline

Friction

“Over the wall? Are you out of your mind, Victoria?" Tex's voice was a harsh, skin-crawling whisper, barely cutting through the howling wind shaking the rusted mining crane. "Look at the damn snow. The wind is picking up, your fingers are freezing to your rifle, and you want to scale a twelve-foot concrete barrier while two snipers have a clean angle on the courtyard?" "Tex, shut up. Lev prep the line," Victoria snapped, not even looking back at him. Her eyes were locked onto the digital matrix blinking inside her tactical visor, tracking the shifting orange heat signatures Giordano’s drone was feeding them. "I’m serious!" Tex stepped closer, his boots crunching loudly on a patch of frozen gravel. He grabbed the shoulder of her tactical vest, forcing her to glance at him. "This isn't a textbook raid. It’s a butcher shop if we mess up the timing. Look at Salvatore over there… he's losing blood, his breath is rattling, and he can barely hold that heavy rifle steady!" Giordano le

Friction 2.

The cold on the upper lip of the wall was brutal. The wind tore at Victoria’s clothes, trying to rip her balance away as her boots finally cleared the concrete edge. The second they dropped down onto the other side, they hit the ground running. Action took over. Two guards in thick winter gear came around the corner of the secondary loading dock, their rifles half-raised. Victoria lunged forward through the swirling white-out, her movements fast and completely silent. She jammed the butt of her weapon straight into the first man’s throat, cutting off his air before he could scream, then spun on her heel and drove her knee hard into the second guard's ribs, sending him crashing face-first into a jagged pile of frozen iron rods. They went down like stones in the snow. Giordano watched the entire sequence from his position near the metal crates. His chest was heaving, his jaw tight against the stinging cold, but a clear look of surprise hit his face. He was visibly impressed by th

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