Chapter Five
1225 Words
Chapter Five – The Fire Beneath Prague
The van rolled to a stop in the shadow of a crumbling warehouse on the outskirts of Prague.
The sky was a steel grey — not quite dawn, not quite night — and the city around them slept in heavy silence. Fog curled along the cobblestones like breath from the underworld.
Liam checked his weapon, then looked at Serena.
“You ready?”
Her eyes didn’t flinch. “Let’s end this.”
They exited the van in silence.
No words. No hesitation.
The old Lombardi warehouse loomed ahead, abandoned decades ago when the family was forced underground. Now, its windows were boarded, the walls tagged with warnings in multiple languages. But the fire inside it — the enemy’s fire — had not died.
Three of Liam’s trusted men flanked them. Each knew what was at stake.
Each knew the possibility of not making it out.
---
“Positions,” Liam murmured into the comm.
They split.
Serena and Liam took the northern entrance — a rusted steel door, half-welded shut. Liam slipped a small charge from his vest, placed it silently on the hinges.
“Three,” he whispered. “Two. One.”
BOOM.
The door blew open with a cough of smoke and metal.
They were inside.
---
The air was thick with mold, dust, and something darker — the scent of blood long dried.
Serena’s boots crunched over broken glass.
Somewhere in the shadows, a rat squeaked and vanished.
“Clear left,” Liam muttered.
“Clear right,” she responded.
But as they reached the main corridor, the power flickered on — not theirs — and fluorescent lights buzzed to life.
“They know,” Liam growled.
A voice echoed through the corridor, distorted by speakers.
“Welcome home, Serena.”
Her blood chilled.
“Keep moving,” Liam ordered.
They pushed forward, past rows of old crates, some still bearing the Lombardi seal — their legacy, hijacked and desecrated.
Then gunfire.
It exploded from the mezzanine above.
Liam tackled Serena to the ground, bullets tearing into the crates behind them.
“Two snipers!” he shouted.
Serena rolled, grabbed her sidearm, and fired back. One of Liam’s men returned fire from across the room, but was hit — went down hard.
“Cover me!” Liam shouted, and leapt into motion.
Serena fired again, forcing the sniper back. Liam climbed the scaffolding like a ghost, took the first shooter out with a clean strike.
Then the second turned his rifle—at Serena.
She saw the glint—
CRACK.
The sniper dropped.
Liam stood over him, chest heaving.
“You okay?” he called down.
Serena nodded, breathless. “Better now.”
She stood, her chest rising and falling rapidly. The air stung her lungs, and adrenaline pounded in her veins like thunder.
Then she looked down at her side.
Blood.
Dark. Blooming fast across her shirt.
She blinked.
Then crumpled to the floor.
---
“Serena!”
Liam was beside her in seconds, catching her before she hit the concrete.
“No, no, no—stay with me!” His voice cracked for the first time in years.
“I’m—fine—” she whispered, her face pale.
“You are not fine. You’ve been shot.”
“I noticed,” she rasped, trying to smile. “Left side. Clean through. I can still fight.”
Liam tore a strip of cloth from his sleeve and pressed it hard to the wound. “You’re not fighting, Serena. You’re surviving.”
She winced. “Always the dramatic one.”
But her voice was fading.
Gunfire echoed again in the distance — someone was still engaging the enemy — but Liam didn’t move.
He kept his body low, shielding hers, his hands covered in her blood.
“I told you not to come,” he muttered.
“And I told you I’m not leaving you behind,” she replied, weaker now.
“You’re not leaving me, period,” he growled. “You hear me?”
Her lips parted, but no sound came out.
He lifted her into his arms, fast and sure.
“Hold on, Serena,” he whispered into her hair.
And for the first time since this began...
Liam was afraid.
---
Flashback – A Cage of Velvet and Steel
Darkness tugged at the edges of Serena’s mind. But it wasn’t death calling her.
It was memory.
She was eight.
Sitting alone in the grand Lombardi estate’s ballroom — a place built for celebration, yet always eerily silent. The chandeliers sparkled overhead, but the light felt cold.
Outside, laughter echoed. Not hers.
She pressed her face to the tall windows, watching other children play behind iron gates.
But she wasn’t allowed out.
“Too dangerous,” they said.
“Too valuable,” they whispered.
Every day, she sat with tutors in ten different languages.
Every night, she ate dinner with armed guards standing like statues at the walls.
Birthdays were quiet. Gifts were expensive, but meaningless.
She learned to dance alone, with only shadows to mirror her.
One time, she tried to speak to the maid’s daughter — a girl her age with soft curls and warm eyes.
They talked for five minutes.
The next day, the girl and her mother were gone.
Father never explained.
But Serena learned: connection was a weakness. And weaknesses disappeared.
So she stopped trying.
She stopped asking.
She became what they wanted: untouchable. Unreachable.
A porcelain doll behind bulletproof glass.
Then, at fourteen, she met Liam.
He was new. Older. Quiet.
Didn’t talk unless necessary. But unlike the others, he didn’t look through her. He looked at her.
For the first time, someone saw her loneliness.
He didn’t comment on it.
But he stayed.
Then the darkness took over again.
And Serena, bleeding on the floor of a foreign warehouse, whispered in her sleep:
“Don’t leave me…”
And Liam, holding her tighter than he’d ever held anyone, answered a ghost she didn’t know she’d called:
“Never.”
---
The van raced through the back streets of Prague, Liam’s jaw clenched, Serena unconscious beside him, bleeding but still breathing. His men cleared the path to a secure safehouse, one used only in the direst of emergencies.
Inside, the place smelled of iron and dust. But it was safe. For now.
Liam laid Serena on a makeshift medical table. A medic he trusted arrived moments later, already prepping tools and gauze.
“She’s strong,” the medic muttered. “This will hurt, but she’ll make it.”
Liam stepped back, letting the man work, his fists tight, his mind reeling.
Then the door creaked.
A figure stood in the doorway — young, maybe early twenties. Dressed in black, with dark eyes that mirrored Serena’s.
Liam’s hand went to his weapon instantly. “Who the hell are you?”
The boy raised his hands slowly. “I’m family.”
“No, you’re not,” Liam spat.
But the boy’s gaze dropped to Serena — unconscious, pale, vulnerable — and something in his face shifted.
“My name is Elio Lombardi,” he said softly. “And I’m her cousin.”
Silence.
Liam stared at him, calculating. The resemblance was subtle, but there. Same sharp jaw. Same eyes.
“I thought you were dead,” Liam said.
- Writer
