The city’s pulse was a distant echo beneath Alessia’s pounding heart as she crouched behind the crumbling wall, the weight of what they had uncovered pressing down like a suffocating shroud. The cold night air bit at her skin, but it was nothing compared to the chill spreading in her soul — the cruel realization that betrayal wasn’t just a dagger to the back, but a wildfire consuming everything she had once trusted.
Lorenzo’s voice cracked through the radio, barely a whisper but sharp enough to cut through the darkness. “We have what we came for. Move to extraction.”
Alessia’s fingers trembled, clutching the battered flash drive containing Isabella’s secrets. Each byte was a revelation, proof of deception so deep it threatened to unravel the fragile fabric of their fragile alliance.
But
