Chapter 21[Elara]The private medical facility in Geneva sat on the edge of Lake Leman, isolated and surrounded by dense alpine forest. It was designed to look like a luxury retreat, not a fortress.That was a mistake.The syndicate jet touched down at a private airstrip three miles away. The storm from Marseille had followed us into Switzerland. I stepped off the plane into the freezing, driving rain, chambering a round into my assault rifle.Twelve of Cassian’s best men flanked me. They moved with silent, lethal precision, spreading out toward the armored SUVs waiting on the tarmac."Comms check," I ordered, tapping my earpiece."Alpha team secure," Vincenzo’s replacement, a grizzled Capo named Matteo, replied through the static."We go in hard and fast," I told them, climbing into the passenger seat of the lead SUV. "The High Table doesn't take hostages. If they've breached Lily’s floor, we don't clear rooms. We shoot through the walls."The drive to the clinic took six agonizing

Chapter 23**[Elara]**Time shattered into agonizing, slow-motion fragments. I saw the white hospital blanket snap violently in the rotor wash. I saw the tangle of clear plastic tubing ripping free from the portable oxygen tank. I saw my sister's pale, motionless face turned toward the sky as gravity laid its claim on her fragile body. The High Table didn't want leverage. They wanted me broken. They wanted the Viper to watch her only reason for living splatter against the concrete. I didn't scream. My throat sealed entirely, locking the terror inside my chest. I sprinted toward the edge of the helipad, dropping my rifle. The weapon clattered against the wet tarmac, useless. She was falling thirty feet away, out over the sloped glass awning that bordered the hospital roof. If she hit that glass, it would shred her. If she hit the pavement below, she would die instantly. I dove over the low parapet wall. I didn't think about my own landing. I didn't care about the physics of the d

Chapter 25**[Elara]**Rome did not welcome us; it swallowed us whole. The private jet landed at a clandestine airstrip on the outskirts of the city just before dawn. The moment the wheels touched the tarmac, a fleet of armored SUVs, flanked by heavily armed outriders on motorcycles, surrounded the plane. Cassian didn’t wait for the stairs to fully extend. He carried Lily down in his arms, entirely ignoring the pain in his mangled hand, and handed her directly to a Rossi trauma team waiting in a mobile ICU. I stood at the top of the stairs, leaning heavily against the railing. A syndicate medic had bandaged my back during the flight, pumping me full of painkillers, but every breath still felt like inhaling shattered glass. I watched Cassian issue orders to the Capos. He was back in his element. The brutal mercenary persona had completely vanished, replaced by the commanding, terrifying aura of a Mafia Don who had just reclaimed his throne. He wore a fresh black suit, the jacket res

Chapter 27[Cassian]The war room in the catacombs had been a gamble. Elara knew it, and I knew it.You don't simply walk into a room full of ancient wolves, declare that you are overthrowing the global order, and expect them to immediately bare their teeth alongside you. The Italian Mafia was built on tradition, but it survived on self-preservation."They won't come."Matteo stood beside me on the freezing tarmac of the clandestine airstrip. The Italian sun had barely crested the horizon, casting long, bloody streaks of orange and violet across the sky. Two Rossi Syndicate cargo planes sat idling, their massive rear ramps lowered.We were loading weapons. Heavy, military-grade ordnance that had cost me a fortune to smuggle out of the Balkans. C4 explosives, anti-materiel rifles, and enough thermite to melt a glacier."They'll come," I replied, my voice devoid of doubt.I adjusted the sling of my rifle over my shoulder, wincing slightly as the fiberglass cast on my right hand bumped a

Chapter 29[Elara]Silence in the aftermath of an avalanche is a heavy, suffocating thing.The roaring chaos of the collapsing mountain was instantly replaced by a stark, absolute quiet. The wind howled across the newly formed ridge, whipping the loose powder into blinding white vortexes. Beneath us, the Citadel was completely buried."Thermal imaging," I ordered, tapping the side of my goggles.The lens shifted from optical to infrared. The fifty feet of snow covering the fortress was a cold, dark blue, but slowly, rapidly expanding pockets of bright red began to bleed through the surface."The exhaust vents are choked," I said, pointing toward the heat signatures. "Their internal temperature is spiking. The emergency generators are trying to cycle, but they can't expel the carbon monoxide.""How long until they suffocate?" Cassian asked, standing right beside me. The freezing wind tore at his dark hair, but he looked completely unaffected by the cold."Ten minutes. Tops. The Commiss