Chapter 3 - THE COMING STORM
The sun dipped lower, bleeding a bruised violet across the western sky.
In the quiet of the garage, the gravity of Sophia's words settled over Alessandro. For twenty years, he had been the hunter. He decided who lived, who died, and whose businesses burned to the ground. To be hunted—to be blind and cornered in a rural wasteland—was a sensation so alien it felt like a physical weight on his chest.
"Twenty minutes," Alessandro murmured, his mind calculating angles, exits, and firepower. "I have a pistol and seven rounds. My driver has the heavy kit in the decoy vehicle six miles east."
"Which is currently surrounded by three SUVs of heavily armed men who realized they caught a decoy ten minutes ago," Sophia countered smoothly, walking back to the workbench and opening a hidden compartment beneath the wooden surface.
She didn't pull out a wrench.
She pulled out a suppressed MP5 submachine gun, a brick of C4 with a digital detonator, and two spare magazines, slamming them onto the table with practiced efficiency.
Alessandro stared at the weaponry, then back at her. The grease on her hands suddenly looked very different. It wasn't the grease of an ordinary mechanic. It was the residue of a woman who knew how to strip down an assault rifle in the dark.
"You keep a military-grade arsenal next to the spare spark plugs?" Alessandro asked, a faint, humorless smile touching the corner of his mouth.
"You live long enough running from men like you, Mr. Moretti, you learn that tools come in all shapes and sizes," Sophia said, tossing a magazine to him with casual precision. He caught it out of the air instinctively, his thumb checking the spring tension by pure reflex. "Now, are we going to sit here and admire my collection, or are we going to fortify this garage?"
"Where is Emma?" Alessandro asked sharply, his head snapping toward the back room.
"Asleep," Sophia said, her voice softening for the first time, a flicker of fierce maternal protection crossing her features. "I drugged her milk twenty minutes ago. She won't wake up until sunrise, no matter what happens out here."
Alessandro felt a strange knot tighten in his stomach. A mob boss didn't care about children—not really. It was a rule of the underworld: sentimentality was a vulnerability. Yet, looking at Sophia standing over her workbench with a submachine gun, he felt an unexpected wave of respect. She had protected her world the only way she knew how.
"They'll come down the dirt road," Alessandro said, walking toward the open bay doors and peering out into the twilight. "Two vehicles. Professional. They won't announce themselves."
"They won't have to," Sophia said, pulling a pair of wire cutters from her belt. "Because I've spent the last three years rigging every telephone pole, fence line, and tree within a quarter-mile of this property with tripwires and motion sensors."
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She grabbed a small tactical monitor from the shelf and tapped the screen. Three glowing red blips appeared at the edge of the screen, six miles out and closing fast.
"Fifteen minutes," Sophia said. "Let's go to work."
