Chapter 60
The mansion loomed ahead, its skeletal remains swallowed by the night. The once-grand structure stood in eerie silence, moonlight casting jagged shadows across its cracked façade. Ivy curled like fingers over the stone walls, the gates left ajar as if inviting them into something they wouldn't escape.
Enzo tightened his grip on the gun holstered at his hip. Beside him, Isabella's breath was steady, though he could sense the tension coiling in her frame.
"This place feels wrong," she murmured.
"It's the only lead we have," Enzo said, stepping forward. The air was thick with rot and damp wood, the faint scent of decay curling in the cold. They had been in dangerous places before, but something about this house felt personal.
The front door groaned open beneath Enzo's push, revealing a grand foyer bathed in darkness. A tarnished chandelier swayed ever so slightly above, dust shifting in the air. Their footsteps echoed too loudly as they moved inside.
Furniture draped in white sheets lined the hallways, their ghostly forms barely visible. The silence here wasn't just the absence of sound-it was a warning.
"Look at this," Isabella called.
She stood before a wall, her expression unreadable. Enzo moved closer, his stomach tightening as he saw what had stopped her cold.
Photographs.
Dozens of them.
Pinned across the peeling wallpaper in meticulous rows.
Every single one was of them.
Shots taken from rooftops, street corners, hotel lobbies. Pictures of Enzo, Isabella, Tony-some dating back years. Someone had been watching them, studying them.
Isabella reached out, brushing her fingers over a grainy image of Tony laughing-alive and unaware.
Before either of them could speak, a voice slipped through the shadows behind them.
"Welcome home."
The words curled in the air like smoke, thick with malice.
Enzo spun, gun raised, eyes sweeping the dimly lit hall. The voice had come from the shadows beyond the foyer, but the mansion's darkness made it impossible to see who had spoken.
"Who's there?" Isabella demanded, knife poised in her grip.
Silence.
Then-a whisper of movement.
Enzo caught the glint of steel an instant before the attack came. A figure lunged from the darkness, a blade slicing through the air. Enzo barely sidestepped in time, the knife missing his throat by inches.
The masked figure moved fast-inhumanly precise. Their feet barely made a sound against the old wooden floors, their strikes calculated, relentless. Isabella joined the fight, her blade clashing against the assassins in a deadly dance.
Enzo fired a shot-missed.
The attacker twisted away, impossibly fluid, and before Enzo could react, a gloved hand darted out and grabbed his wrist.
Cold steel pressed against his neck.
A whisper, close to his ear.
"He's alive."
Enzo's body locked up. His breath caught.
Tony.
The assassin didn't wait for a response. In one swift motion, they shoved him backward and vanished into the shadows as quickly as they had appeared, leaving behind only silence.
Isabella turned to Enzo, eyes wide.
"What the hell was that?" she asked, chest rising and falling.
Enzo couldn't answer. His hands trembled. His mind raced.
Tony was alive.
They tore through the mansion, searching for any clue that could lead them to Tony. Every door they kicked open revealed dust-covered furniture and forgotten rooms, but nothing that screamed Moretti.
Then, behind a hidden panel in the study, Isabella found something.
A tunnel.
A narrow, damp corridor stretched beneath the mansion, the air thick with moisture. It reeked of mildew and something else-something metallic. Blood?
"This feels like a trap," Isabella muttered.
"Probably is," Enzo replied. "Still going?"
She exhaled sharply. "Obviously."
They pressed forward, boots scraping against the uneven floor. The deeper they went, the more suffocating the space became, the walls tightening like a tomb. At the end of the tunnel, they reached an iron door, its surface rusted and worn.
A keypad blinked beside it, numbers glowing an eerie red.
Isabella touched the panel, and the screen flickered-a countdown appeared.
Sixty seconds.
Then, a static-filled video feed blinked to life on a monitor above.
Tony.
Bound to a chair. Barely conscious. His face was bruised, blood dripping from a gash along his temple.
Isabella sucked in a breath. Enzo's vision blurred with rage.
The timer hit thirty seconds.
No code. No clue on how to stop it.
Enzo clenched his jaw. They were running out of time.