Chapter 5 - THE SOKOLOV TRAPOutside, the heavy iron gates of the Moretti estate blew open in a cloud of thick, yellow smoke.
Footsteps—dozens of heavy, tactical boots—slammed against the wet gravel of the driveway. Valentin Sokolov, a towering brute with a jagged scar running from his ear to his jawline, led his assault team toward the main entrance, holding an assault rifle across his chest.
"Move, move, move!" Valentin barked into his tactical radio. "Burn the estate to the ground! Leave no witnesses! Take Aleandro alive—I want to carve my initials into his ribs myself!"
The glass front doors of the mansion shattered inward as a breaching charge detonated, sending a shockwave through the foyer. Valentin stepped through the smoke, a victorious smirk plastered across his brutal face.
The grand foyer was pitch black. The chandeliers had been blown out, leaving only the eerie, flickering glow of emergency lights casting long, distorted shadows across the marble pillars.
"Aleandro!" Valentin shouted into the cavernous hall, his voice echoing off the high ceilings. "It's over, old friend! Your little girlfriend gave us every access code, every bank route, and every blind spot in your security grid! Come out and die like a man!"
Silence answered him. Only the steady dripping of rainwater from his men’s tactical gear broke the quiet.
Valentin frowned, raising his rifle. "Sweep the rooms. Find him."
Three of his elite enforcers fanned out toward the eastern corridor, their flashlights cutting sharp beams through the darkness. They pushed open the door to the master study—the very room where the antique clock hung on the wall.
"Clear," the first enforcer muttered, stepping inside.
He walked up to the mahogany desk. Resting right in the center of the polished wood was a single, matte-black listening device—the exact bug Isabella had planted, now blinking with a fast, erratic red light instead of green.
The enforcer frowned and picked it up. "Boss, we found the repeater—"
Click.
It wasn't a toggle switch. It was a remote detonator frequency.
Across the entire estate, every security screen in the command bunker lit up simultaneously. In the center of the study, the heavy walnut antique clock—carved by a dying father twenty-two years ago—swung open on its brass hinges. Inside wasn't clockwork anymore. It was five pounds of military-grade C4.
BOOM.
The blast tore through the center of the mansion like a localized earthquake. The shockwave swallowed the eastern corridor in an instant, turning steel, concrete, and human flesh into a blinding flash of orange fire and ash.
Valentin staggered backward in the foyer, deafened and covered in soot. "What the hell was that?!"
From the grand staircase above, a single shadow stepped out of the smoke.
Aleandro Moretti stood at the top of the landing. His left shoulder was wrapped in a thick, blood-soaked white bandage, but his right hand held a suppressed submachine gun with absolute, terrifying steadiness.
"You forgot one rule of the Moretti house, Valentin," Aleandro’s voice cut through the ringing silence of the blast.
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Valentin looked up, his face pale with sudden, horrifying realization. "You... you knew she was a rat from the beginning."
"I knew," Aleandro said softly. "And I built a very special room just for guests who liked to listen in."
