Page 15 of The Underboss’s Secret Twins (Underworld Heirs #2)

MARCO

V alentina’s impassioned plea cuts through the room.

"You have to go after her, Marco. You can’t let them do this to her."

Her words settle deep in my chest, heavy and immovable, like a blade wedged between my ribs.

I look at her—really look at her. The raw desperation in her expression, the fire in her eyes. She’s furious, but beneath it, she’s afraid. Not for herself, but for Sofia. For what’s happening to her at this very moment while we stand here, wasting time.

I don’t need her to tell me. I already know.

I drag my gaze back to Luca. He’s watching me, his face unreadable, the tension in his shoulders the only sign that I’ve struck a nerve.

"I’m going after her, Luca," I say, my voice cold, final. "I don’t care what it costs."

A slow exhale. The slightest shift of his jaw. His fingers tap once against his glass, but he doesn’t argue. He doesn’t need to. The answer is already there in the silence between us.

He thinks I’m making a mistake.

Maybe I am.

But I’ve made my choice. And there’s no coming back from it.

I turn on my heel and leave before he can say another word.

The estate thrums with the kind of controlled chaos that comes after a war.

The victory against the Rossis is still fresh, the blood barely dry, but there’s no time to celebrate.

Not for me. Not when Sofia is out there, trapped in enemy hands, counting down the minutes until I find her— or until it’s too late.

I head straight for the armory, my pulse a steady, determined beat against my skin. Inside, the scent of gun oil and steel lingers in the air, familiar and grounding.

Dante is already there, leaning against the table with his arms crossed, waiting.

"I’m coming with you," he says before I can open my mouth.

"No."

He scoffs. "Not a request, fratello ."

I glare at him, but he doesn’t flinch. He just holds my stare, unwavering.

"You need me," he says, pushing off the table. "You know you do."

He’s right, and we both know it. Dante isn’t just my brother, he’s a strategist, a fighter, and one of the few people I trust to watch my back without hesitation. He's also an insufferable fuckboy, but I have to pick my battles.

I grit my teeth and nod. "Fine. But you listen to me. No reckless shit."

He smirks. "That’s your job."

I ignore him and turn to Adriano, who’s already loading weapons into a case.

"I need eyes on the Lombardi operations. Safe houses, warehouses, anything. If they’ve got Sofia, they’ll want somewhere secure to keep her."

Adriano nods, his focus sharp. "I’ll pull up surveillance feeds and get in touch with our informants. We’ll find her."

I grab my gun, check the magazine, and slide it into my holster.

"This isn’t just a rescue mission," I say in an undervoice. "It’s a message. The Lombardis took someone under our protection. We’re going to show them what happens when they cross that line."

Dante loads a rifle, his expression darkening. "We’re going to burn them to the ground."

I look at him, my grip tightening around the gun.

"No."

He raises an eyebrow.

"We get Sofia first," I say. "Then we burn them to the ground."

The plan is set. The mission is clear: Get in. Get Sofia. Kill anyone who stands in the way.

Mancini lays out the details, his voice clipped, his expression drawn tight with the weight of what’s at stake.

He tailed the Lombardi enforcers down to a warehouse on the outskirts of Nuova Speranza—one they’ve used before as a temporary hideout.

It’s isolated, surrounded by empty lots and abandoned buildings, a perfect place for something to disappear. Or someone.

Adriano is already hunched over his laptop, fingers flying across the keys as he hacks into the building’s security system.

The blueprints load first—an old industrial structure, reinforced steel doors, high ceilings, multiple exits.

Then, the camera feeds blink to life, grainy black-and-white images filling the screen.

The place is crawling with Lombardi men.

Armed. Ready. Waiting.

"They’re expecting a fight," Dante mutters, standing over Adriano’s shoulder.

"Good," I say. "Then we won’t disappoint them."

I start working through the approach in my head, refining the plan as I speak.

"We hit them from two sides. I take the main team through the front—fast, direct, no hesitation. Adriano kills the power right before we breach, plunging the whole place into darkness. That’ll buy us an opening."

"And me?" Dante asks.

"You’re the distraction."

He grins like I just handed him a new toy.

"You’ll take a small team," I continue, "and hit a Lombardi stash house a few blocks away. Set a few cars on fire, make some noise. They’ll think we’re after something else, and if we’re lucky, they’ll send reinforcements away from the warehouse. That should thin their numbers before we move in."

Dante nods, already eager to get started.

Adriano doesn’t look up from his screen as he speaks. "I’ll be set up a few blocks away with my gear. I can shut down their security feeds, but they’ll notice the blackout pretty fast."

"Doesn’t matter." I check my gun, sliding the magazine into place with a sharp click. "We won’t be giving them time to react."

No one argues.

We all know what’s at stake.

The city crawls past in streaks of dirty light, neon signs bleeding red across rain-slick asphalt, the gutters running with piss and oil.

These are streets my family has paid for in bone.

I know every turn, every rusted lamppost, every alleyway where men have begged for their lives and got silence instead.

The car cuts through the dark without hurry, the engine low and even, like it knows there’s no need to rush.

What waits at the end will still be there, whether we arrive in five minutes or fifty.

I sit in the passenger seat with my gun across my lap, thumb resting against the trigger guard, the barrel warmed by my palm.

My jaw is locked tight. My teeth grind against the weight of what I haven’t said, of how I left things with Sofia.

The others know better than to fill the silence.

They ride behind me, loyal and still, like blades sheathed and ready. But my mind doesn’t quiet. It sharpens.

I don’t know what they’ve done to her. I don’t know if she’s bleeding.

I don’t know if she screamed and no one came.

I don’t know if they kept her in the dark, if they touched her face with hands that didn’t belong to her, if she bit down until she tasted iron just to keep from breaking.

What I do know is this—she’s mine. And mine is not a word I throw around.

Mine means you do not look at her unless I allow it.

Mine means your life ends the moment you think about hurting her.

Mine means that I will kill for her, slowly if I have time, quickly if I don’t.

I have burned men for less. I’ve leveled families for what they thought was a mistake.

This is no mistake. This is intentional. Which means they’ve chosen their end.

I stretch my neck once, roll my shoulders, hear the soft crack of tension being chased out of bone.

My knuckles shift on the grip of the gun.

I breathe in slow. Not to calm down, there’s no need.

My heart isn’t racing. It never does before the kill.

I’m calm because I’ve already decided what comes next.

There’s no question, no hesitation, no plea they could offer that would reach me.

My mercy lives and dies with her. If they’ve taken it from her, then they’ve taken it from me, too.

The warehouse comes into view, squat and wide and stinking of damp rust. It’s typical—low ceilings, no windows, two exits at best, and walls thick enough to swallow a scream.

I raise my hand. The convoy behind me obeys without a word.

Engines go quiet. Doors stay closed. Every man on this job was handpicked, not for loyalty—that’s expected—but for discipline.

No one gets sloppy tonight. No one fires unless I give the signal.

We don’t make noise. We don’t make mistakes. We end it.

I step out into the street. The wind bites cold against my skin, and I let it.

It clears the last of the fog from my head.

My boots hit the pavement, silent and certain.

The others fan out behind me, weapons drawn, eyes forward.

No one speaks. No one asks what happens if we’re wrong. We’re not. I can feel her.

Adriano breaks off, setting up in a darkened alleyway a few blocks away. His laptop screen flickers as he gets to work.

"The system is old," he mutters. "Shouldn’t take much to crash it."

Seconds pass.

Then—

A low hum. A flicker. And then?—

Darkness.

The warehouse plunges into blackness.

No lights. No cameras.

Just us.

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.