2026-02-26 16:12:01The rain showed no sign of letting up. Beneath the cold downpour, Kalen crawled backward, dragging himself away from Vargas’s corpse, which was still spilling the last remnants of life into the mud. He stared at “Leo” standing there, swaying yet upright, surrounded by a terrifying aura.
Kalen’s hand groped at his ankle. There, hidden inside his tactical boot, was a pocket-sized backup pistol.
“You… you’re a demon,” Kalen hissed, his breath ragged. “What did you do to the real Leo?”
Vittorio stared at his own hands, trembling violently. His vision began to double. The surrounding trees seemed to melt, their shapes warping into dark figures that whispered to him. Withdrawal hallucinations were starting to assault his nervous system.
“The real Leo died from the dose you gave him,” Vittorio rasped. His voice sounded like sandpaper scraping against wood. “And believe me, he was grateful that I took over his unfinished business.”
Kalen noticed the shaking in Vittorio’s body. A thin smile crept across his face as he sensed an opening. “You can’t even hold that knife straight anymore. Look at yourself, Leo. You’re broken.”
Driven by desperation, Kalen moved in a flash, yanking the .22 caliber pistol from his boot. “Die, you worthless junkie!”
Vittorio did not dodge. Instead, he stepped forward in one long stride just as the muzzle rose. With a minimal motion that wasted not an inch of energy, he caught Kalen’s trigger finger mid-pull. A single outward twist, and the bone punched through the skin.
“AAAAAGGGHHH!” Kalen howled. The pistol fell into the mud before it could spit a bullet.
Vittorio did not stop there. He kicked Kalen’s knee, forcing the man to drop to his knees in front of him. Then Vittorio picked up the tiny pistol and aimed it straight at Kalen’s forehead, his hand still trembling, yet locked with lethal precision.
“One finger for one question,” Vittorio said coldly. “Why did you want Leo dead tonight? Answer honestly, or I start breaking the rest of your fingers.”
Clutching his shattered hand, Kalen’s face turned ashen beneath a sheen of cold sweat. “You know why… the Ravelli family… they didn’t want a disgrace like you to stay alive!”
“Lies,” Vittorio cut in. He pressed the muzzle harder against Kalen’s forehead. “A family wouldn’t send two Black Ops executives just to eliminate a street junkie. This is about something bigger. Who is The Circle?”
Kalen’s eyes went wide. The name was taboo, something no outsider should know, least of all Leo Ravelli, the trash they had written off. “How… how do you know about them?”
“I heard you talking while I was still wrapped in that plastic,” Vittorio lied. In truth, a hazy memory from Leo’s brain cells had just pulsed to life, sending flashes of a silver circle logo on a skyscraper. “Talk, Kalen. Who are they?”
“They are everything!” Kalen screamed hysterically. “The Circle decides who ascends the throne and who rots in the grave! They’re the ones funding Antonio!”
Vittorio felt a surge of emotion that was not his own. Deep hatred, betrayal, and a burning rage that belonged to Leo Ravelli rose from the depths of his soul. He could feel Leo’s memories, the moment his own father, a member of the honor council, cast him into the streets so their business with The Circle would not be tainted by the existence of a “defective” son.
“So they’re using Antonio as a puppet to get rid of me?” Vittorio murmured.
“Antonio is not a puppet!” Kalen shot back between coughs. “He is the future. And you… you were just a sacrifice for Project Ouroboros. They needed someone to blame when the data leaked!”
“What data?” Vittorio demanded.
Kalen laughed bitterly, his voice swallowed by the sound of helicopter blades now dangerously close. Wind from the rotors began to shake the branches above them. “The data you stole from your father’s safe! Did you really think you could hide it forever?”
Vittorio froze for a moment. So Leo had not been a passive addict after all. In his final days, the unfortunate young man had tried to fight back by stealing something immensely valuable.
“Where is the data?” Vittorio asked softly, his voice low and nearly a whisper, yet heavy with menace.
“Go to hell, Leo!” Kalen spat toward Vittorio’s face. “You’ll never be able to open it. The Circle will level this city just to find that thing!”
Vittorio calmly wiped the spit from his cheek. The hallucinations worsened. He saw Antonio’s face, his old friend who had betrayed him fifty years ago, overlapping with Kalen’s. The thirst for blood became unbearable.
“Thank you for the information,” Vittorio said.
“Wait! You said you’d let me live!” Kalen screamed as he saw Vittorio’s finger tighten on the trigger.
“I lied,” Vittorio replied flatly. “That is the first lesson you should learn in your next life. Never trust a Valdieri.”
Click.
The backup pistol jammed. Mud clogging the mechanism stopped the firing pin cold.
Kalen realized it and tried to rise for a final act of resistance. Vittorio no longer relied on firearms. With the last of his adrenaline, he smashed the pistol’s grip into Kalen’s temple with full force.
Thud.
Kalen collapsed, still conscious. Vittorio dropped the useless gun and wrapped both gaunt hands around Kalen’s throat. Using his body weight, he forced the man’s trachea down into the mud.
“Look into my eyes, Kalen,” Vittorio whispered as he felt the pulse in his opponent’s neck weaken. “Carry this message to hell. Tell everyone you meet there… that Vittorio Valdieri has returned.”
Kalen’s eyes bulged one last time before the light within them went out. His body convulsed briefly, then went limp.
Vittorio released his grip and dropped to a seated position beside the two bodies, now slowly being swallowed by mud. He gasped for air. His lungs burned. His entire body shook violently, not just from the cold, but from the fentanyl side effects ravaging his nervous system.
“Damn… this body is absolute trash,” Vittorio muttered to himself.
He tried to stand, but the world spun. The image of the real Leo appeared before him, a thin young man with injection marks on his arms, staring at him with a sad smile.
“Avenge me, Don…” the apparition whispered before vanishing into the wind.
Vittorio shook his head to clear his thoughts. He searched Kalen’s pockets for anything useful. A lighter, a few soggy bills, and a phone with a shattered screen. Nothing truly valuable.
Suddenly, a massive spotlight from the sky swept over the area. Blinding white light cut through the forest darkness, casting long, terrifying shadows between the trees.
The helicopter was now directly overhead. Vittorio could hear shouted orders through a megaphone, muffled by the storm.
“Target detected at the excavation site! Alpha Team, prepare to deploy! Secure the subject, alive or dead!”
Vittorio stood on trembling legs. He held the jammed .22 pistol, though he knew it was useless. He positioned himself between Vargas’s and Kalen’s bodies and stared straight into the helicopter’s blinding light.
Blood streamed from his temple, mixing with rain and black mud. He looked like a forest wraith crawling out of a grave.
“You came at the wrong time,” Vittorio muttered, grinning at the light.
He knew he could not fight a full team in this condition. He needed shelter. He needed a plan. And most of all, he needed to purge the poison from this body before it killed him a second time.
Vittorio turned and began running into the thicker thorny brush. He did not care if the thorns tore into his skin. Pain was the only thing that convinced him he was still alive.
Behind him, he heard ropes dropping from the helicopter and the heavy thud of boots hitting the ground. The hunters had landed.
“After him! Don’t let him reach the river!” a commanding voice shouted.
Vittorio pushed his fragile heart harder, vanishing into the forest’s dark embrace. Behind him, tactical flashlights sliced through the night, hunting the wounded predator.
He was Vittorio Valdieri.
And tonight, he would teach them that death is never the end of a war.
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CHAPTER 115: FOG OVER THE THAMES
The sky above London no longer poured rain. Instead, it exhaled a blanket of soot-laden fog so dense that a person could barely see the tip of their own nose. The stinging smell of coal burning in thousands of emergency furnaces saturated the air, creating an atmosphere that felt Victorian in appearance yet burdened with the suffocating tension of modern military rule. In the silence of the River Thames, its waters black as ink, a Crimson Syndicate hydrofoil sped forward almost soundlessly, slicing through the fog toward a hidden dock beneath Westminster Bridge.Leo Valdieri stood on the vessel's bridge, dressed in a thick charcoal wool coat with a crimson silk scarf wrapped around his neck. Leo Ravelli's body had become remarkably powerful. Every movement radiated the efficiency of a predator that had made peace with its pain."London has always known how to hide its sins behind a veil of fog, Silas," Leo said, his voice calm yet carrying an oppressive resonance.Standing beside him
CHAPTER 114: BLOOD LITURGY IN THE CITY OF FASHION
The basement beneath the Palazzo Ducale no longer smelled of ancient mildew. Instead, the air carried the sharp scent of industrial cleaning chemicals and lingering gunpowder still clinging to Silas Vane's suit.At the center of the room, illuminated only by a single low-hanging halogen lamp, Fabrizio Valdieri sat bound to a heavy iron chair. The face that had once mirrored the glory days of the past was now ruined, blood caked at the corners of his mouth. Yet his eyes still burned with blind fanaticism.Leo Valdieri stood in the shadows, lazily twirling his carbon knife with a hypnotic motion. He had exchanged his tuxedo for a black tactical shirt with the sleeves rolled up, revealing the increasingly powerful physique of Leo Ravelli's body."You were always a terrible dreamer, Fabrizio."Leo's voice shattered the silence, cold and vibrating with oppressive authority."In seventy-four, you thought you could survive by jumping out of the car before it exploded. Now you think you can p
CHAPTER 113: BLOOD UPON STILL WATERS
The hydraulic gears beneath the Rialto Bridge groaned, iron grinding against iron as the manual floodgates were forced shut by the White Sword faction's sabotage. The canal's surface, usually a scene of romance, had become a corridor of slaughter.Leo Valdieri stood tall at the bow of a tactical speedboat he had just hijacked, his hands gripping the assault rifle of the attacker whose shattered body now lay crumpled in a corner of the deck."Silas! Don't let them turn around at the San Marco bend!" Leo shouted through his wired communicator.From the balcony of the towering Palazzo Ducale behind them, a flash erupted from the muzzle of Silas Vane's sniper rifle, slicing through the darkness.BANG!One of the enemy speedboats in the rear formation exploded when Silas's magnetic round struck its steam engine. A fireball surged into the sky, bathing the facades of the ancient buildings in a horrifying crimson glow."The rear sector is sealed, Don!" Silas's voice came through, calm but he
Chapter 112: Banquet in the City of Water
Three months after radioactive steam shrouded the skies above Pripyat and erased Antonio Valdieri's shadow forever, the world did not suddenly become a paradise. On the contrary, the planet became a blank canvas contested by countless hands hungry to paint it red. In the vacuum left by global power, the Crimson Syndicate underwent a metamorphosis. They were no longer merely an underground guerrilla force. They had become the architects of a new order known as the "Great Family of the World."Venice, the city built upon thousands of wooden pillars, had been chosen as the shadow capital. There, within the lavishly restored Palazzo Ducale, luxury that challenged the passage of time gleamed beneath Murano chandeliers, their light reflecting across the crystal-clear waters of the canals.Leo Valdieri stood on a balcony overlooking the Grand Canal. Leo Ravelli's body now appeared far more mature. He had survived the explosion through an impossible twist of fate after his farewell broadcast.
CHAPTER 111: THE FOUNTAIN OF TRAITORS
The asphalt of Via del Corso beneath Leo Valdieri's feet felt too smooth, too flawless for a street that should have been decades old. Above them, the ceiling of Sector Zero's massive dome flickered, displaying a simulation of the constellations from 1974 that was beginning to distort under electrical interference. Gunfire and explosions from the café still echoed through the artificial city, bouncing off the facades of fake Roman buildings that were now cracking open to reveal the steel framework beneath."Two more blocks to the Trevi Fountain, Don!" Silas Vane shouted as he unleashed a burst of suppressive fire toward an apartment balcony on the left."Leo, the sensors ahead are detecting an abnormal temperature spike!" Elena Ravelli ran beside her brother, her fingers moving swiftly across the scanning device mounted on her forearm. "The water in that fountain isn't decorative. It's the primary coolant for the steam reactor beneath us!"Leo Valdieri ducked as a heated spike round s
CHAPTER 110: THE SILENT ZONE IN FORBIDDEN LAND
The sky above Pripyat was never truly black. It hung overhead in a dense gray haze that resembled funeral ash. The rain that fell across this region brought no freshness, only traces of heavy metals that clung to the armored windows of the Crimson Syndicate APC. In the distance, the silhouette of the giant rusted Ferris wheel stood like the skeleton of a prehistoric monster, a silent witness to a world whose heartbeat had stopped decades ago. This was Sector Zero. An exclusion zone in Ukraine that had officially been erased from international navigation systems by the remnants of the Hegemony. Here, beneath layers of concrete and radiation, The Sovereign's Shadow had built his final sanctuary.Leo Valdieri sat in the rear seat of the APC, watching the monitor that displayed radiation levels outside the vehicle. His black suit remained immaculate, a stark contrast to the desolation beyond the glass. Leo Ravelli's body now felt so perfectly synchronized with his soul that he could sens
