Chapter 14 - The Ambush in the Archive
The attacker was fast—trained in close-quarters combat with the lethal efficiency of a professional wet-work operative. A heavy combat boot lashed out, kicking the locker door wide open and sending Sophia stumbling backward against the drafting table. Blueprints scattered like autumn leaves across the floor.
Sophia rolled instinctively to her left, bringing the pistol up from her hip just as a heavy boot stamped down on her wrist, sending the weapon clattering across the concrete.
"You've grown up since the day you pulled me out of the trash, little maid," a raspy voice laughed, stepping into the amber light.
He looked identical to Leo in facial structure—the same sharp jawline, the same piercing dark eyes—but his expression was twisted into a cruel, unhinged smirk. A jagged scar ran from his left ear down his throat, half-hidden by a dark tactical turtleneck.
"You're the ghost," Sophia spat, her breath coming in sharp gasps as she scrambled backward until her spine hit the reinforced steel shelving. "The twin they said didn't survive."
"Julian," the young man corrected, stepping closer, a heavy hunting knife gleaming in his right hand. "And unlike my dear brother Leo, I wasn't raised in a gilded cage by a mafia boss with a guilty conscience. I was raised in the gutters of Marseille, learning how to take back what rightfully belongs to my bloodline."
Sophia didn't waste breath arguing. Her left hand, hidden behind her back along the bottom shelf of the archive rack, quietly brushed against the metal latch of the heavy storage crate.
"My father will tear this estate apart brick by brick to find you," Sophia said, keeping Julian's eyes locked on hers.
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"Let him try," Julian sneer, raising the knife. "By the time Rocco gets back from Geneva, this house won't even be ashes. It'll be a grave."
With a sudden, explosive burst of movement, Sophia didn't reach for a gun. She shoved the entire metal storage rack forward with all her weight. The heavy shelving unit, loaded with fifty pounds of steel dossiers and archive binders, crashed directly into Julian’s chest, pinning him against the concrete wall with a sickening crunch of breaking ribs.
