Chapter 6 - The Flames of Betrayal
Luca did not hesitate for a fraction of a second.
He threw his body completely in front of mine just as Dante pulled the trigger.
The bullet grazed Luca's shoulder, tearing through his expensive black coat.
I screamed as blood instantly stained his white shirt.
Before Dante could fire a second shot, Luca lunged forward and wrestled the gun away from him.
Luca struck Dante across the jaw with the butt of the pistol, knocking him out cold.
I rushed to Luca's side, pressing my hands against his bleeding shoulder to stop the flow.
He winced in pain but told me it was only a flesh wound.
We heard the screeching of tires outside the safe house windows.
Dozens of black SUVs were surrounding the building.
Vincenzo had tracked Dante's location and sent an entire army to finish the job.
Luca grabbed me by the hand and pulled me toward the basement stairs.
He knew every safe house had an emergency incendiary protocol built into the walls.
He punched a code into a hidden keypad behind a bookshelf.
A mechanical voice announced that the building would incinerate in sixty seconds.
We scrambled down the stairs and into a reinforced panic room just as the front doors were kicked open.
We heard heavy footsteps storming the floor above us.
Then, the incendiary charges detonated with a deafening roar.
The entire safe house above us was instantly engulfed in massive, cleansing flames.
The fire consumed Vincenzo's men before they could even scream.
We waited in the dark panic room until the intense heat finally began to fade.
Luca pushed the heavy escape hatch open, leading us out into the smoking ruins of the forest.
We had survived the ambush, but we were completely on foot and out of time.
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Ash tugged on my sleeve and pointed silently toward the sky.
A massive search drone was hovering silently above the trees, its red light blinking directly at us.
