Chapter 8 - The Devil’s BargainI stood up so fast my chair tipped backward and crashed onto the wooden floorboards.
"No!" I snapped, grabbing Mateo by the collar of his shirt. "You heard them! They have Luca! We can't just hand over the drive—if they get that data, everyone who helped us, everyone fighting corruption in this city, is dead!"
Mateo didn't panic. He slowly reached up, gently removed my hands from his collar, and adjusted his jacket.
"Sit down, Julian," Mateo said, his voice entirely devoid of fear.
"Are you insane?! They're going to kill him!"
"They want us to think they have him," Mateo corrected, pulling a sleek, matte-black Glock 19 out from his waistband and checking the magazine. "Do you honestly think a man who survived a massacre at twenty-five, built a criminal empire from the ground up, and outsmarted the smartest politicians in the country gets captured by a two-bit hit squad because of a burning estate?"
I blinked, my mind racing. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying the lighthouse trap isn't their trap," Mateo said with a grim, bloodthirsty smile. "It's ours."
He tossed a spare Kevlar vest across the table toward me. I caught it reflexively, fumbling with the heavy straps.
"Listen to me carefully, Julian," Mateo instructed, his tone snapping into absolute tactical authority. "The Triad thinks they have all the leverage. They think you're just a scared bartender, and they think Luca is cornered. We’re going to walk down to that lighthouse. You’re going to hand them a decoy encrypted drive. And the second they plug it in to verify, Luca’s sniper team stationed on the ridge will turn their command unit into red mist."
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"And if it goes wrong?" I asked, my voice trembling as I strapped the heavy ballistic vest over my chest.
"Then your sister gets on that freighter tonight with half a million dollars, a new passport, and a clean slate," Mateo said, looking me dead in the eye. "Because Luca made a promise. And Luca Ravellini never breaks a promise to family."
