Chapter 12 - The Fall of MorettiBy 2:00 a.m., the main courtyard of the Costa estate hummed with the muted growl of six armored black SUVs idling in formation. Twenty of Damian's most elite, heavily armed soldiers stood in disciplined silence, checking tactical vests and suppressed automatic rifles.
Damian walked down the grand marble staircase, wearing a long charcoal coat over a black tactical turtleneck. His eyes were cold, calculating, and devoid of mercy.
Paul Ferrell stepped up beside him, handing him a satellite communications unit. "Gianna Moretti is currently at her villa in Pozzuoli. She thinks her intruder team is still radio-silent while conducting the extraction."
"She thinks wrong," Damian said flatly, slipping an extra magazine into his coat pocket. "We cut the villa's external communications sixty seconds ago. Secure the perimeter. No survivors among her inner guard."
"And Gianna?" Paul asked grimly.
"She belongs to me," Damian growled.
Thirty minutes later, the iron gates of the Moretti stronghold in Pozzuoli were blown off their hinges by synchronized breacher charges.
What followed was not a chaotic shootout, but a clinical, terrifying demonstration of absolute tactical dominance. Damian's strike team moved through the courtyard and grand marble foyer like wraiths, neutralizing Moretti’s sentries before alarms could even echo through the estate.
Damian pushed open the heavy double doors of Gianna Moretti's private office.
Gianna—a striking woman in her fifties with silver-streaked hair and sharp, ruthless eyes—sat behind a glass executive desk. A pearl-handled revolver sat near her hand, but three red laser dots painted her chest the moment the doors opened.
Damian stepped into the room alone, drawing his personal sidearm.
"Damian," Gianna said, her voice tight, though she attempted a cold, arrogant smile. "You came in person. I suppose my boys failed at the cottage."
"You targeted a twenty-six-year-old girl who cleans my mother's room," Damian said, his voice dropping into a register so cold it seemed to freeze the very air in the room.
"She was leverage!" Gianna hissed, her composure cracking slightly under his sub-zero glare. "You made her important! You cleared her debts, gave her a house on your estate, and posted your best guards outside her door! In our world, Damian, whatever you protect becomes a target!"
Damian walked slowly up to the desk, leaning down until his dark eyes were inches from hers.
"In your world, Gianna, you thought I was distracted by a sick mother," Damian whispered, his voice smooth as velvet and deadly as a cobra. "You thought I had gone soft. You failed to realize that giving me something to care about didn't make me weak."
He raised his weapon.
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"It made me unholy."
A single muted report echoed through the office. Gianna Moretti collapsed back into her high-backed chair, her reign over the northern docks brought to a swift, final end.
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