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It’s enough for my trigger finger to freeze. This has happened before, prompted by a box of toys in a begging man’s basement. I let that man live, and that mercy still haunts me.

I know well that hesitation could get us all killed. Then clarity takes over, and I fire. After the echo of the shot fades, Silence returns.

The scene of the blazing docks becomes dramatic. The fire spreads upward to the cranes while black smoke rises into the night sky like dark ribbons.

Somewhere behind me, Marco shouts in a hoarse voice, “Are you okay?”

Okay. The word doesn’t mean anything anymore. But I nod because it’s easier than explaining.

The water laps at the pier, reflecting the fire in fractured waves. I stand at the edge, gun loose at my side. The image staring back isn’t a man…just a weapon that forgot what it was built for. Just a shadow in the glow.

For a long time, I hear only rain sizzling on flames. Then her soft, broken voice crops up again. “You’re not beyond saving.”

Maybe she was wrong. Maybe this constant pain and emptiness is the hell a man sinks to when there’s nothing left of him that’s worth saving.

The city keeps burning. And I let it.

The sky appears bruised, smeared purple and gray above Queens as the convoy pulls in for our exit. According to Billy, one last Volkov nest remains. There’s a certain satisfaction in knowing that I’ll leave that place in an explosion of gunpowder, fire, and fear.

The Volkov manor looks ancient, as if forgotten by time. Cracked columns and boarded windows give it the appearance of an old-world carcass dressed in crime. A perfect place for ghosts to keep their secrets.

Weapons check. Slide clicks. Chamber ready. Marco mutters something about déjà vu, how every job lately feels like the same grave with a new address. He’s not wrong.

One kick, and the front door splinters off its hinges. The foyer stretches dark and still. Not silence, but the kind of absence that hums low, like a wound healing wrong.

I venture inside, my gun drawn. Three steps in, I gag at a stench heavy enough to taste and find dozens of bodies scattered everywhere. Mostly Russians. Their blood smears across the marble. The chandelier still swaying above drips red. Someone ended this nest before we could, though our war with the Volkovs isn’t over.

And in the center of the carnage, I find her.

Sophia.

Bound at the wrists and tied to a staircase banister. She’s standing straight anyway, her chin up, her eyes blazing. Despite the tangled hair and the dirt smudged along her cheek, she’s breathing.

Every muscle in my body goes still, and all the violence—the night itself—falls away. For one fragile heartbeat, I’m not a killer or a commander. I’m just a man who almost lost and has now found the only thing that matters, and my world narrows to her face.

Then I register motion. The last brute alive lifts his gun. Instinct overrides thought. With one squeeze, his skull bursts red across the marble. The click echoes, final. She doesn’t flinch.

Holstering my gun, I extract my knife next. The rope binding her parts under the blade’s edge, fibers snapping as I free her hands. The tremor in mine betrays too much.

She looks like hell. Chestnut hair matted with blood. Bruises blooming purple across her cheekbone. Her shirt is ripped at the shoulder, but she doesn’t seem fazed.

But it’s her eyes that gut me. Gazing at me like I’m both salvation and damnation.

“Are you hurt?” My question is almost lost under the ringing in my ears.

She shakes her head, rubbing her wrists where the rope left angry red welts. Her lips part to speak—my name, maybe, or an apology, or an accusation—but nothing comes out.

Her eyes search me. For the softness, maybe. The man who held her in the dark and promised she wasn’t alone. But he’s gone. Buried under rage and betrayal and the kind of hurt that transforms men into monsters.

Marco appears beside me, his weapon raised, his breath short. “Jesus, Enzo. What the hell…”

“Out.”

He freezes. “What?”

“Out.” My voice sharpens. No room for argument.

Marco hesitates, glances at Sophia, then backs away. The front door creaks shut.