Page 47 of The Underboss's Secret Twins

No lights. No cameras.

Justus.

I motion to the team.

Time to move.

The signal comes and we breach hard, boots slamming into concrete, the metal doors screaming open on rusted hinges that sound like they're announcing judgment. Then—gunfire. No warning. No words. Just bullets flying straight for the throat. I drop low and roll behind a wall of crates, the sharp crack of rounds slicing through the air, chewing into wood, sparking off steel. The wall beside me explodes in splinters. Shards cut across my cheek. I don’t flinch. The smoke hits fast, acrid and thick, gunpowder soaking the back of my tongue as the room drowns in noise. I can’t see shit, but I don’t need to. I know how men shoot when they’re scared. I know how they breathe.

I raise my weapon. One breath. One shot. Another. Two bodies fall. I don’t look at their faces. Don’t need to. They’re Lombardi men. That’s reason enough. I move left, see a shadow try to shift behind a column. Too slow. I put two in his chest, one in the head. He drops like his bones were already gone. The warehouse becomes a battlefield, cavernous and cold, the kind of place built for slaughter. Voices yell across the dark, boots scuff hard as the enemy scrambles for cover. They didn’t expect us this fast. That’s their mistake. Muzzle flashes stutter through the blackness like dying stars, each burst showing me more blood, more motion, more men who should’ve stayed home tonight.

I push forward without hesitation, gun steady in my grip, eyes scanning, every nerve wired to kill. There’s no panic in me. This is the part I was made for. Violence doesn’t rattle me. It focuses me. “Sofia,” I say into my earpiece, voice low, steady, shaped by grit and fury. “Do you have anything? Where the fuck is she?”

Adriano crackles back, breath tight. “I have a lead. Far side. Third door past the loading dock. Locked room, two outside.”

That’s all I need, except that a Lombardi oaf tries to intervene. I slam my elbow into his throat, a sharp crack breaking through the gunfire. He gasps, staggers—doesn’t get the chance to recover before I put a bullet between his eyes.

I hear the others cutting through the opposition, their gunfire relentless, their movements swift and merciless.

But I don’t stop.

I don’tcarehow many men stand between me and that door.

Nothing will stop me from reaching her.

In the meantime, the gunfire builds to a crescendo.

The deeper we push into the warehouse, the heavier the resistance gets. The Lombardis are dug in, barricading themselves behind crates, up on the catwalks, in the fucking shadows—firing at anything that moves. But it doesn’t matter.

We keep moving.

My gun kicks against my palm as I fire, the muzzle flash illuminating the carnage for split seconds at a time. A man lurches back as a bullet punches into his chest, collapsing into a lifeless heap. Another swings around the corner, but I’m faster. Two shots—one to the shoulder, one to the head—drop him instantly.

We’re cutting through them like blades through flesh, swift and merciless. But I can feel it.

We’re getting closer.

I don’t know how, but Ifeelit, thick in the air like a current of electricity surging toward one inevitable conclusion.

Dante moves beside me, his pistol spitting fire as he covers my right. Adriano is behind us, his fingers still smeared with grease from bypassing the security system, moving with ruthless efficiency between his gun and his tech. The rest of my men are fanned out, taking point where they need to, clearing corners, pressing forward.

Every door we breach, every corridor we sweep, brings me closer to her.

And yet, it feels like an eternity.

Until finally?—

"Back wall!" Adriano calls out, his voice edged with adrenaline. "That door. That’s the one."

My head snaps up, my gaze locking onto a reinforced steel door at the far end of the hallway. It’s different from the others. Stronger. Meant to keep peoplein.

My pulse hammers in my throat.

"Sofia," I breathe.

The world narrows to that door.

To the seconds ticking between me and the moment I see her again.