The velvet tapestry felt heavy against Dante’s knuckles as he pressed his eye to the tarnished brass grate. Through the tiny openings, the warm glow of the formal living room spilled into the hidden passage, cutting through the shadows like a blade.

The secret corridor stretched like an artery through the guts of the old mansion, leading away from the living room and toward the grand staircase at the center of the estate. Dante moved with the silent, rhythmic grace of a panther. Every step was calculated, his leather-soled shoes making no sound against the ancient wooden planks that his grandfather had laid down during the Prohibition era.

Beatrice watched him go with wide, terrified eyes, her lips moving in a silent prayer. She wanted to pull him back, to beg him to wait for backup, but she knew the look in his eyes. That was the look of a man who had already crossed the threshold between life and executioner.

The panel clicked shut behind him, sealing her in the dark.

Dante emerged through a second pivot panel hidden behind a massive oil painting of his great-grandfather at the top of the grand staircase. The second-floor landing was quiet, bathed in the cool blue light of the thunderstorm flashing outside the high arched stained-glass windows.

Below, the muffled sound of laughter and clinking glasses drifted up from the living room.

Closer.

Dante drew his pistol, the metal sliding free from its holster with a soft, oiled whisper. He checked the magazine release by touch alone—full. He released the safety.

He didn't head for his master suite. Instead, he walked down the dimly lit corridor toward the guest wing, where Valez’s tactical team had set up their base of operations. He knew every floorboard in this house. He knew which ones creaked under forty pounds of pressure and which ones could support a charging man.

A shadow detached itself from the doorway of the master study.

It was one of Valez’s cartel guards, a tall man wearing a dark tactical vest, holding an HK MP5 submachine gun across his chest. He was looking down at his phone, the pale blue glow reflecting off his shaved head. He hadn't heard a thing over the sound of the rain lashing the glass.

Dante didn't hesitate.

He closed the distance in three silent, explosive strides. Before the guard could look up, Dante’s left hand shot out, clamping over the man’s mouth and nose with a crushing, vice-like grip, while his right arm drove the butt of his pistol into the base of the guard's skull.

The man went limp instantly, his eyes rolling back. Dante caught him by the tactical vest before his boots could hit the hardwood floor, lowering him gently into the shadows of the alcove. He stripped the man’s secondary weapon—a suppressed Glock 19—and slipped it into his belt, taking two spare magazines from the guard's vest.

One down. Five to go.

Dante stepped over the unconscious body and reached the threshold of his own study.

The door was cracked open an inch. Through the gap, he saw the second cartel guard sitting at Dante’s custom mahogany desk, spinning Dante’s solid-gold fountain pen between his fingers while examining the encrypted satellite phone Dante used for offshore communications.

"Stupid rich gringo," the guard muttered in Spanish to himself, tapping the screen.

Dante pushed the door open with the barrel of his pistol.

The guard’s head snapped up, his eyes widening in sheer, unadulterated terror as he stared down the sights of Dante’s weapon. The man’s mouth opened to scream, to call out for Valez, to warn Leo.

He never got the chance.

The suppressed pistol coughed twice—pfft, pfft—a sound no louder than a heavy book dropping on a carpet. Two holes appeared dead-center in the guard's tactical vest, right over the heart. The man slumped forward, his forehead hitting the mahogany desk with a dull thud, staining the polished wood with a dark, spreading pool of crimson.

Dante stepped into his study, walking past the dead man without breaking stride. He locked the study door behind him.

On the desk sat the master console for the estate’s security system. The green power light was dead, disabled by the manual override switch in the basement utility room. But Dante’s private servers—housed in a hardened vault behind the bookcase—ran on an isolated, military-grade auxiliary generator that Valez’s tech crew hadn't found.

Dante tapped a series of biometric keys on the hidden wall scanner.

BEEP.

The small screen flickered to life.

Across the monitor, the estate’s thermal and optical cameras blinked back online, feeding live, high-definition footage directly to Dante’s display.

He saw everything.

He saw the third cartel guard patrolling the ground-floor kitchen, pacing near Beatrice’s pantry. He saw the fourth guard stationed by the front entrance, smoking a cigarette near the open double doors. He saw the fifth guard standing outside the living room doors, guarding the back of Leo Marino.

And on the main screen, in the living room, he watched Camila lean over and whisper something into Leo’s ear, making the underboss throw his head back in a triumphant, booming laugh.