Chapter 6 - Iron and Smoke
The subterranean shooting range beneath the Vance estate was a cavernous, concrete-reinforced bunker carved into the bedrock beneath the Connecticut woodlands.
At 5:00 a.m. sharp, standing in front of a paper silhouette target twenty yards downrange, I squeezed the trigger of the Glock 19.
CRACK.
The deafening report echoed off the concrete walls, the heavy recoil kicking sharply against my palms. I lowered the weapon, squinting through the drifting cordite smoke at the target.
Three inches wide of the center ring.
“Your stance is too rigid, Elena,” Marco muttered, stepping up beside me. His burly frame was draped in a tactical vest, his arms crossed over his chest as he evaluated my form with a critical eye. “You’re fighting the weapon instead of letting it become an extension of your arm. Feet shoulder-width apart. Weight forward. Breathe out on the pull.”
I exhaled slowly, adjusting my grip, feeling the cool steel of the pistol grip against my sweaty palms.
For the past week, my life had transformed into a brutal, relentless boot camp. Mornings were spent in the tactical range with Marco; afternoons were spent studying corporate ledgers, encrypted communication channels, and underworld family trees with Malcolm Reed—Dante’s chief legal counsel and financial strategist.
I was no longer just hiding in the estate. I was being forged into something dangerous.
“Again,” a deep voice echoed from the entrance of the bunker.
I turned my head. Dante leaned against the concrete doorframe, wearing a dark turtleneck and a leather jacket, his hands tucked casually into his pockets. He had just returned from a clandestine meeting in Manhattan, yet he looked as composed as if he had spent the morning reading poetry.
I raised the weapon, locked my eyes onto the silhouette target, focused on my breathing, and squeezed the trigger three times in rapid succession.
Crack-crack-crack.
I lowered the gun and looked down the range.
All three bullets were clustered tightly inside the dead center of the target’s chest.
Marco let out a low whistle of appreciation. “Not bad. Not bad at all for a week of work.”
Dante pushed off the doorframe, walking down the concrete lane until he stood right beside me. He reached out, his warm fingers brushing my wrist, checking my grip on the firearm with professional calm.
“You’re learning fast,” Dante noted quietly, his dark eyes searching my face. “Too fast, perhaps.”
“Survival is a quick study when you don't have a choice,” I replied, lowering the safety and locking the slide back. I set the gun down on the steel table. “Have your men found out who inside Lumina cut the structural cable for the Morettis?”
Dante’s expression darkened. The easy camaraderie vanished instantly, replaced by the lethal coldness of a crime lord seeking blood.
“We found them,” Dante said flatly. “It was one of Lumina’s senior shift managers—a man named Julian. He took a wire transfer of fifty thousand dollars from a Moretti shell company two days before the incident.”
My breath hitched. Julian. The same man who had snapped at me for pouring water too slowly, the immaculate vest-wearing floor manager who treated the staff like dirt.
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“Where is he?” I asked, my voice chillingly steady.
“Locked in the estate’s lower holding cells,” Dante replied. He looked down at me, his obsidian eyes studying my reaction. “I was going to let Marco handle him. But since it was your life they put in the crossfire... do you want to see him?”
