Page 147 of The Underboss's Secret Twins

I don’t slow.

If I don’t reach him in time, everyone in this villa—my men—will die.

The walls tremble again, and a deafening crack splits the air as a support beam collapses behind me. I duck, rolling forward as fire erupts in the space I just left, heat searing against my back.

Vittorio is slipping away, vanishing deeper into the labyrinth of the villa.

I push harder, my grip tightening on my gun, my heart hammering a brutal rhythm against my ribs. I have to catch him before it’s too late.

38

SOFIA

The villa is a labyrinth of destruction. Smoke curls along the walls, licking at the edges of crumbling frescoes, twisting into grotesque shapes beneath the flickering light of shattered chandeliers. Each step sends debris crunching beneath my boots, the remnants of the Lombardi empire crumbling around me. The scent of burning wood, gunpowder, and something sharper—something metallic and wrong—clings to the back of my throat.

I force my breath to steady, pushing forward, my fingers trailing along the uneven stone for balance. Every instinct inside me screams to turn back, to run, but I can’t.

Not without Marco.

I don’t let myself think about how reckless this is. I don’t let myself acknowledge the way my pulse flutters, erratic and unsteady, the way my stomach twists with something more than nausea. I shove all of it down, moving deeper into the shadows, my mind working through every piece of intel I’ve gathered on this villa, every hallway, every hidden passage.

The Lombardis have been expecting an attack. That much is obvious. But this? The explosions, the way the structure groans with every distant detonation—this isn’t just a last stand.

It’s a goddamn execution.

A sudden burst of gunfire cracks from somewhere ahead, followed by the unmistakable snarl of Marco’s voice cutting through the chaos. My heart clenches, my grip tightening on the knife strapped to my thigh.

He’s close.

I move faster, slipping through a jagged opening where the wall has partially collapsed, keeping to the shadows as I edge around the destruction. My pulse beats in my throat, a frantic drum, but I know how to be silent.

I’ve been sneaking into dangerous places my whole life.

But just as I round the next corner, something stops me dead in my tracks.

A door, partially open, the room beyond glowing with the sickly red flicker of exposed wiring and blinking lights.

I step inside.

And I almost choke on the realization of what I’m looking at.

Explosives.

Wired to the walls, stacked in crates, covering nearly every surface. Twisted coils of detonator cables snake across the ground, leading to a central panel humming with energy. The Lombardis didn’t just plan to destroy the villa.

They planned to obliterate it.

I stagger forward, barely breathing as I take it all in, my fingers hovering over the intricate tangle of wires. This is it. This is what they were planning all along.

A kill box.

I swallow hard, my mind racing, cataloging everything I know about demolition setups, about Lombardi tactics, about anything that could help me make sense of this. I spentyears investigating crime syndicates, piecing together their operations, unraveling the mechanics of their power.

Now, that knowledge has to save Marco.

I kneel, running my hands over the panel, searching for anything I recognize. My fingers brush a series of pressure triggers, each one connected to a separate line of explosives. I count six of them before stopping, my stomach twisting.

If these go off, no one makes it out of here alive.