The top floor of Sark Tower no longer resembled a luxurious residence for Rome's elite. The Italian marble that had once gleamed now lay buried beneath thick steel plating and hastily erected concrete barricades. Circuit cables crisscrossed the ceiling, connected to rows of automated gun turrets mounted at every corner of the balconies. The air inside the penthouse felt heavy and suffocating, thick with the scent of machine oil, ozone from the laser defense systems, and the faint smell of corrosive black blood that continued to seep from Eduardo's body. Belerik sat surrounded by monitors, his wheelchair now directly connected to the main terminal. His fingers moved like lightning as he overrode the city's security systems that had already been sabotaged by The Commission. "I've sealed off all elevator access. Anyone trying to come up has to get through the gas traps on the thirtieth floor," Belerik said without looking away, his voice trembling but focused. "I've also

The white smoke from the gas grenades and the black vapor leaking from the cracks in Eduardo's skin merged together, creating a suffocating fog of death throughout the main lobby of Sark Tower. The relentless rattle of machine-gun fire from the front gate sounded like sledgehammers pounding concrete without pause. Amid the chaos, Eduardo stood motionless among piles of corpses, his katana dripping red liquid that turned black the moment it touched the floor."Ed! Quit standing around over there! The left flank's collapsing, damn it!"Gord's voice thundered from behind a concrete barricade at the main entrance. The big man looked like a devil crawling out of a sewer drain. His expensive suit had been shredded, leaving only an undershirt soaked with sweat and bloodstains. He held an M249 SAW light machine gun in one hand while using the other to hurl grenades at the convoy of armored SUVs attempting to force their way inside.Eduardo slowly turned his head. Through his pitch-black visio

Thick gray smoke billowed from the ruins of the West Tower, mixing with the scent of aromatic candles now roasting in the flames. The ceiling, once a masterpiece crafted by Italian artists, had collapsed, leaving behind a twisted skeleton of heat-warped steel.Amid the wreckage of shattered luxury, Emily crawled.Her silk dress, worth thousands of dollars, was now torn to pieces, smeared with marble dust and stained red from the leg crushed beneath a teak pillar."Ed... Eduardo... please..."Emily's weak cry was nearly drowned out by the wind roaring through the massive hole torn into the tower wall.Heavy, measured footsteps approached.Not the hurried steps of a panicked human, but the rhythmic impact of something far more terrifying.Eduardo emerged from behind the curtain of smoke.Freya remained unconscious in his left arm, while baby Vito was secured tightly against his chest with a tactical sling.Eduardo's face looked like a porcelain mask struck by a hammer. Black cracks spre

The sky above Sector Five was no longer blue.Black smoke from the remains of burning buildings and drifting gunpowder dust had woven a suffocating gray shroud across the heavens, as if even the sun refused to witness what remained of Eduardo's empire.In a small corner behind Sark Tower, among the ruins of what had once been a beautiful garden, a crude grave had been dug into the earth.There was no polished teak coffin. No floral wreaths from ministers. No priest reciting sacred prayers.Only a tactical body bag, carefully laid at the bottom of the pit.Inside rested what remained of the man who had once been the Godfather's strongest shield.Gord.The clown whose luck had finally run out.Belerik sat in his wheelchair at the edge of the grave. His face was swollen from crying, and one side of his thick glasses was cracked. He held a cold, cheap cheeseburger, the last meal Gord always asked for, then tossed it onto the body bag as a final tribute."You bastard, Gord," Belerik whispe

The twin turbines of the Gulfstream G650 private jet purred smoothly as it sliced through a sea of black clouds at thirty thousand feet.Inside the cabin, lined with lambskin leather and perfectly polished mahogany, the silence felt so dense it was as if the air itself had turned to lead. The dim cabin lights reflected off a crystal glass filled with Macallan 1926 whiskey, a drink expensive enough to buy an entire city block. Yet to Eduardo, the liquid was no different from cold water.Eduardo sat in the captain's chair, staring out the window.His reflection in the glass looked like the ghost of a future that had gone wrong.His hair was completely white. His skin was cracked like drought-stricken earth that had not felt rain in years. His pitch-black eyes seemed to swallow every trace of light that entered the cabin."So how's it feel, Grandson? Sitting on the highest throne in the sky, but not even remembering why you got on this plane in the first place."Grandpa's voice came from