The docks burned under a half-moon sky.
Lorenzo moved like a shadow among the containers, his men spreading out silently. The night air reeked of gasoline and salt — the kind of air that carried death.
Then a single gunshot cracked the silence.
And another.
Matteo dropped beside him, breathing hard. "They knew we were coming. There's someone feeding them information."
Lorenzo's jaw tightened. He raised his gun, eyes sharp and ruthless. "Then tonight, we end the leak."
Before Matteo could respond, the sound of engines cut through the chaos — a car swerved through the mist, headlights slicing the fog like knives.
Lorenzo turned, and for a second, his chest stopped moving.
Elena.
She stepped out of the car in black, her coat whipping around her legs, eyes like glass under firelight. "You think I was going to stay home while you went to war without me?" she called, her voice echoing through the open space.
"Damn it, Elena, get back in the car!" Lorenzo barked, half fury, half fear.
But she didn't move.
Instead, she drew something from under her coat — a silver pistol, polished, heavy. Her fingers wrapped around it with the confidence of someone who'd held it a hundred times before.
Lorenzo froze.
He'd never seen her touch a gun. Never even heard her speak of one.
Then the first enemy stepped out from behind a crate, aiming at her.
He didn't even finish his sentence.
Bang.
The bullet hit him clean between the eyes. He dropped instantly, the echo rolling across the docks like thunder.
Everyone stopped — even Lorenzo's men.
And in that frozen second, the world seemed to tilt.
Lorenzo stared at her, his voice low and ragged. "Where the hell did you learn to shoot like that?"
She didn't answer immediately. Instead, she turned toward another attacker rushing from behind a container, raised her weapon, and fired again — this time, without even looking down the sight. Another man fell.
The air went still again. Smoke curled between them.
Finally, Elena turned back to him, her eyes dark and steady. "You think my father only taught me how to be quiet and obedient?" she said coldly. "He knew this day would come. He told me the world he built would one day come for me."
Lorenzo's throat tightened. "Your father… trained you?"
She nodded once. "From when I was fifteen. Shooting, hand-to-hand, how to stay alive when the world collapses. I thought he was being paranoid — I hated him for it. But maybe, somehow… he was preparing me for you. For this."
Another explosion shattered the moment — the fight still raged. Lorenzo snapped out of his daze, barking orders, his voice hard again.
"Elena, behind me!"
She smirked, stepping beside him instead. "No, beside you. I'm not hiding."
Bullets screamed through the fog as the De Luca men fired back. Elena moved with a cold precision, her gun kicking back in her grip, every shot hitting its mark. Lorenzo couldn't take his eyes off her — the woman he thought he was protecting was protecting him.
And yet, somewhere inside him, something deeper twisted — the knowledge that the man who destroyed his family had also shaped the woman who now saved his life.
When the smoke finally cleared, bodies littered the ground.
Lorenzo dropped his gun, chest heaving, the night wind cold against his sweat. He turned toward her slowly, disbelief and pride burning together in his eyes.
"You…" he said hoarsely, "you saved my life tonight."
Elena holstered the pistol and wiped blood from her cheek with the back of her hand. "No," she said quietly, looking around at the carnage. "We saved our family."
And as sirens began to wail faintly in the distance, Lorenzo reached for her hand. She didn't flinch. The two of them stood in the middle of the battlefield — blood, smoke, and fire all around — and for the first time, they were equals.
But far away, in a dark office somewhere in Milan, a man watched the security footage of that night.
He smiled coldly.
"Elena Russo," he murmured. "So the daughter of the traitor lives — and she remembers how to fight."
He turned to his men, eyes glinting. "Then we move to phase two."
The real war had only begun.