Chapter 8 - The Ticking Clock
The deafening pop and blinding white light incapacitated Castri and his armed men instantly, sending them screaming to the ground.
Damiano, having recognized the familiar sound of a tactical pin being pulled, had already shielded his eyes and turned away.
He didn't waste a single precious second asking how a six-year-old girl possessed military-grade explosive flashbangs.
He lunged forward into the chaos, using his heavy boots and bare fists to brutally disarm the blinded mercenaries.
Within ten seconds, all five of Castri’s heavily armed guards were unconscious or groaning in agony on the damp tunnel floor.
Don Castri himself was crawling backward through the filthy puddle, frantically rubbing his burning eyes and shouting for help.
Damiano grabbed the elderly crime boss by his expensive silk collar, lifting him effortlessly off the ground and slamming him against the wall.
"Your reign of terror over this city ends tonight, Emilio," Damiano growled, pressing a captured pistol directly to the man's forehead.
"Wait, you fool!" Castri shrieked in absolute terror, spit flying from his lips as he struggled to breathe.
"If my heart rate monitor flatlines, the explosive charges I planted under your precious estate will detonate immediately."
Damiano paused, his eyes narrowing as he noticed the small, blinking medical device strapped tightly to the rival boss's wrist.
"You rigged a dead-man's switch to a building filled with your own allies?" Damiano asked, disgusted by the sheer cowardice.
"I leave nothing to chance, Verrone," Castri spat, a bloody, defiant smile returning to his bruised face.
"You let me walk out of this tunnel alive, or we all burn together in exactly five minutes when the timer expires anyway."
Damiano cursed violently, knowing he couldn't evacuate his wounded friend, the mother, and the child in just five minutes.
He dropped the old man to the floor, quickly stripping the complex detonator watch from Castri's trembling wrist.
"Elena, help me carry Rafael toward the access ladder," Damiano ordered, his mind racing through impossible tactical solutions.
"I need to hack this device and stop the countdown before we reach the street level, or the blast radius will vaporize us."
He passed the heavy bodyguard's arm over his shoulder, relying on Elena to support Rafael's other side as they moved quickly.
Mia ran ahead, her small flashlight bobbing in the darkness as she guided them toward the rusty iron ladder leading to freedom.
Damiano marched forward while frantically examining the exposed wires on the back of the stolen detonator watch.
"Red wire or blue wire, just like in the movies," he muttered sarcastically, feeling the cold sweat dripping down his forehead.
He used a small tactical knife to pry open the casing, exposing a complex circuit board that made zero logical sense.
"Daddy, the ladder is right here!" Mia called out happily, pointing her beam of light upward toward a heavy manhole cover.
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Damiano looked down at the timer in his hand, his blood running completely cold as the screen suddenly glitched.
Instead of showing four minutes, the digital numbers rapidly scrambled and bypassed the countdown entirely, dropping straight to ten seconds.
