Aria's POV
Gunfire echoes through the mansion.
I jump up, hand on my weapon. "How many?"
"Thirty, maybe forty." Luca remains impossibly calm, like people attacking his home is just another Tuesday. "Sofia brought her best people. She really wants you back."
"I'm not going back to her."
"Then we fight." He opens a hidden panel in his desk, revealing an arsenal of weapons. "Do we have a deal, Aria? Help me kill Sofia, and I help you save Dante?"
The gunfire gets louder. Closer.
I think about Dante. Chained. Bleeding. Missing a finger because of my mother's cruelty.
I think about my father. Shot by the woman who was supposed to love him.
I think about all the lies, all the manipulation, all the pain Sofia has caused.
"Yes." The word tastes like ash. "We have a deal."
Luca's smile is terrifying. "Excellent. Now let's show your mother what happens when you attack a Constantino."
He tosses me a bulletproof vest, grabs a rifle like he's done this a thousand times. Probably has.
We head into the hallway. Matteo's already there, gun drawn, looking furious.
"You said wait in the car!" he shouts at me.
"Plans changed!"
"I NOTICED!"
Glass shatters somewhere below. Shouts. More gunfire.
"They're in the house," Luca says calmly. "Aria, you and Matteo take the east wing. I'll handle the main entrance."
"Alone?" I ask.
"I've handled worse odds." He checks his weapon. "Just keep Sofia busy if you see her. Don't kill her yet—I want that pleasure myself."
He disappears down the stairs, moving like a predator half his age.
"This is insane," Matteo mutters. "We're taking tactical advice from a psychopath."
"You have a better plan?"
"Run?"
"Dante doesn't have that option."
Matteo curses but follows me toward the east wing.
We make it to the landing when three of Sofia's soldiers appear below.
I fire. Matteo fires. Two go down. The third dives behind a statue.
"Circle around!" I tell Matteo.
He nods, moving left while I go right.
The soldier pops up to shoot—
I'm faster.
He drops.
"Three down," Matteo says grimly. "Thirty-seven to go."
We keep moving through the mansion. It's chaos—gunfire, smoke, bodies. Luca's guards fighting Sofia's soldiers. Blood on expensive carpets. Bullet holes in priceless art.
My phone buzzes.
Sofia: I know you're in there, baby girl. Come out and no one else has to die.
I text back: You first. Leave and I won't kill you.
Her response is immediate: Brave words from a girl hiding behind her boyfriend's psychotic father.
Another message: 7 hours left on Dante's clock, by the way. Even if you survive this, he won't.
My hands shake with rage.
"Aria!" Matteo grabs my arm, pulls me down as bullets whiz overhead.
We're pinned behind a marble column. Four soldiers advancing from the stairs.
"We're trapped," Matteo says.
"Not for long." I pull a grenade from my vest—one of Luca's "gifts."
"Are you CRAZY? We're inside!"
"Trust me!"
I pull the pin, count to three, throw it down the hallway—away from the soldiers, toward a load-bearing wall.
We cover our heads.
BOOM.
The explosion rocks the mansion. The wall collapses, taking half the ceiling with it.
When the dust clears, the soldiers are buried under rubble.
"You just blew up a mansion," Matteo says faintly.
"Luca said make noise. I made noise."
We scramble through the wreckage, heading deeper into the east wing.
That's when I see her.
Sofia.
She's standing at the end of the hallway, flanked by six armed men. She looks perfect—not a hair out of place, designer clothes spotless despite the war zone around us.
"There's my girl," she says, smiling. "We need to stop meeting like this."
I raise my gun. "Let Dante go. Now."
"Or what? You'll shoot me?" She laughs. "We both know you can't. I'm your mother."
"You stopped being my mother the day you killed my father."
Something flickers in her eyes. Pain? Regret? It's gone too fast to tell.
"Tomás was weak," she says coldly. "He would have destroyed everything I'd worked for. I did what was necessary."
"You murdered an innocent man!"
"There are no innocent men in this world, Aria. Only survivors and casualties." She gestures to her guards. "Now drop your weapon and come with me. Or I'll have my men kill your new friend."
Guns swing toward Matteo.
"Don't," I warn. "Don't you dare—"
"Drop. The. Gun."
I look at Matteo. He shakes his head slightly. Don't do it.
But I can't let her kill him. Can't let anyone else die because of me.
My gun clatters to the floor.
"Good girl." Sofia nods to her men. "Secure her."
Two soldiers approach. I tense, ready to fight anyway—
The ceiling above Sofia explodes.
Luca Constantino drops through like an avenging demon, landing behind Sofia's guards. He moves faster than should be possible for a man his age, knife in one hand, gun in the other.
One guard dies before anyone can react. Two. Three.
Sofia's remaining men spin to face him.
That's when Matteo and I move.
I grab my gun. Matteo fires. Two more guards drop.
Sofia dives for cover, returning fire.
It's chaos. Bullets everywhere. Bodies falling.
I chase after Sofia. She's running toward the back of the mansion, shooting over her shoulder.
"You can't run forever!" I shout.
"Watch me!"
She crashes through a door—
Into an empty room.
Dead end.
I follow her in, gun raised. "It's over."
Sofia turns, and for the first time, I see genuine fear in her eyes.
"Aria, please. I'm still your mother."
"You're a murderer."
"So are you now." She points at the bodies behind me. "How many have you killed tonight? Three? Four? We're more alike than you want to admit."
The words hit harder than they should.
Because she's right. I've killed people tonight. Become exactly what Marco trained me to be. What Sofia made me.
A weapon.
"The difference," I say quietly, "is I kill to protect people I love. You kill because you love nothing but power."
"I loved your father!" The words burst out of her. "I LOVED him, and loving him made me weak. Made me vulnerable. When the Syndicate ordered me to kill him, I knew—if I didn't, they'd kill us all. You, me, him. Everyone." Tears stream down her face. "So I chose. I killed the man I loved to save the daughter I loved more."
I'm shaking. "That's not love. That's insanity."
"That's survival." She lowers her gun slightly. "Everything I've done—every terrible thing—I did it to keep you alive. To keep you safe from the Syndicate."
"By pointing me at Dante? By torturing him? By trying to KILL me in your penthouse?"
"That wasn't real! The poison was fake. I was never going to hurt you."
"You CUT OFF HIS FINGER!"
"To motivate you! To make you take the Constantino empire before someone else did!" She's almost pleading now. "Don't you see? The Syndicate is fracturing. There's going to be a war. And when that war comes, only the strong survive. I need the Constantino resources. I need Dante's network. I need—"
"You need to stop." Luca appears in the doorway, gun pointed at Sofia. "Your lies are boring me."
Sofia's face hardens. "Luca. How long have you been listening?"
"Long enough to know you're full of it." He steps into the room. "You didn't kill Tomás to save anyone. You killed him because the Syndicate promoted you for it. Gave you power. Influence. Everything you always wanted."
"That's not true—"
"I was THERE, Sofia. I'm the one who gave the order." Luca's smile is cruel. "Fourteen-year-old Dante watched his father orchestrate your husband's murder. Watched you pull the trigger without hesitation. No tears. No regret. You want to play the tragic hero? Try a different audience."
Sofia's mask finally cracks completely. The fear, the fake tears—gone. What's left is cold rage.
"Fine," she hisses. "I killed Tomás because he was weak. I used Aria because she's a tool. And I'm taking the Constantino empire whether you like it or not."
She raises her gun toward Luca—
I fire first.
The bullet hits her shoulder. She screams, drops her weapon.
"That's for my father," I say.
I fire again. Her leg. She falls.
"That's for Dante."
I walk forward, gun pointed at her head.
"And this is for me."
"Aria, wait!" Matteo bursts in. "Don't! If you kill her in cold blood, you'll never come back from it!"
My finger trembles on the trigger.
Sofia laughs through her pain. "Do it. Pull the trigger. Become exactly what I made you to be."
"You didn't make me," I say. "You tried. But I'm not you. I'll never be you."
I lower my gun.
"Matteo, call the police. She's going to prison for what she did to my father. To Dante. To everyone."
"The police?" Luca sounds disgusted. "She'll escape. She'll come back. You're making a mistake."
"Maybe. But it's MY mistake to make."
I turn my back on Sofia, on Luca, on all of it.
"Now someone tell me where my mother is REALLY keeping Dante. Because I'm done with games."
Sofia laughs again, wet and painful. "You think this was the real location? Oh, Aria. The hospital in Queens is empty. Has been for days. Dante's somewhere else entirely."
My blood runs cold. "You're lying."
"Am I? Luca's information was planted. Fed to him by one of MY people." She coughs blood. "You fell for it. All of you."
"Then where IS he?" I scream.
"Where you'll never find him in time." Her smile is triumphant even in defeat. "5 hours, 43 minutes. Tick tock."
Luca shoots her.
Just like that. No warning. The bullet hits her chest.
Sofia's eyes go wide with shock. Then empty.
She falls.
Dead.
"NO!" I drop beside her, pressing on the wound, but there's too much blood. "No, no, NO—"
"She wasn't going to talk," Luca says calmly. "And we don't have time for sentiment."
"She was the only one who knew where Dante is!"
"Wrong." Luca pulls out his phone, makes a call. "The tracker I put in Dante's ring before his capture just activated. He's moving. Which means he's either escaping... or being moved to a final location."
He shows me the screen. A blinking dot heading south out of the city.
"We have one chance," Luca says. "Follow that signal before it goes dark. Save my disappointing son. And pray we
're not too late."
I look down at my mother's body. Dead by Luca's hand.
Feel nothing.
Maybe I am a monster after all.
"Let's go," I say.
We run.