Chapter 5 - The Price of TreasonNina gasped for air as Castellano’s fingers dug into her windpipe. She scratched at his hands, spots of black dancing before her eyes.
"Nina!" Alexander roared.
Weakened as he was, the sight of Nina being choked snapped something inside Alexander. With a primal roar, he threw himself off the bed, tackling Castellano at the waist. Both men crashed to the floor, rolling across the blood-stained rug.
Alexander slammed Castellano’s head into the floor, but the doctor managed to jab his thumb into Alexander's recovering chest wound from a past war, forcing the mob boss to groan in agony. Castellano scrambled away, reaching frantically into his jacket pocket.
He pulled out a small, glass syringe filled with a clear liquid—pure, concentrated potassium chloride. A lethal injection that would stop a heart in seconds.
"If I go down, you go with me!" Castellano screamed, lunging toward Alexander with the needle pointed at his neck.
A gunshot echoed through the room—deafeningly loud.
Castellano froze in mid-air. A red dot appeared in the center of his forehead. The doctor tumbled sideways, crashing against the nightstand, dead before he hit the floor.
Standing in the doorway of the bedroom, smoke wafting from the barrel of a heavy revolver, was Marcus.
The remaining gunmen had been neutralized. The room fell into an eerie, suffocating silence, broken only by the sound of heavy breathing and the rain beating against the shattered balcony glass.
Marcus lowered his gun, his eyes scanning the carnage. "Clean up crew is already on their way upstairs," he said calmly.
Alexander pulled himself up, clutching his side. He immediately turned to Nina, pulling her into his arms. "Are you alright? Did he hurt you?"
"I'm... I'm okay," Nina gasped, clinging to his shirt, her body shaking hysterically. "Is it over?"
Marcus walked over, stepping over Castellano’s body, his expression grim. "It's not over, Alexander. Castellano didn't act alone on the inside."
Alexander looked up, his eyes narrowing. "What do you mean?"
Marcus pulled a burner phone from Castellano’s pocket and unlocked it, displaying a string of encrypted text messages. "Castellano was taking orders from someone inside this house. Someone who gave him the security codes to turn off the perimeter alarms tonight."
Nina looked around the room. The guards were dead. Castellano was dead. Only Marcus, Alexander, and herself remained.
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"Who?" Alexander demanded, his voice dropping an octave.
Marcus looked straight at Nina. "The text messages were sent from an IP address assigned to the house servant quarters. Specifically... Nina’s room."
