Chapter 17 - THE DEVIL'S SNARE
The setup was flawless. Sterling arranged a face-to-face meeting with Nikolai Volkov at an abandoned rail yard on the city’s edge, under the pretense of renegotiating his cut due to the "heightened risk" of the Moretti family's survival.
Lorenzo deployed his best snipers in the rusted catwalks above. Evelyn monitored the thermal feeds from a heavily armored mobile command van parked two miles away, guarded by ten of Lorenzo’s most loyal men. The plan was to capture Volkov alive, extract his network, and end the war in one fell swoop.
At 2:00 AM, a convoy of blacked-out Mercedes rolled into the rail yard. Volkov emerged—a massive, scarred man wrapped in a heavy wool coat, his eyes like dead winter.
"Sterling," Volkov’s heavily accented voice boomed across the yard. "You asked for a meeting. You have five minutes."
Lorenzo, hidden in the shadows of a freight car, readied his team for the ambush. But as Sterling began to speak, Evelyn’s voice crackled frantically over the radio.
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"Lorenzo! It’s a trap! The thermal signatures in the cars—they’re not human! They’re incendiary rigs! Pull out! PULL OUT!"
Before Lorenzo could shout the order, Volkov pressed a detonator. The three Mercedes exploded in a blinding inferno, wiping out the ground floor of the rail yard. Amidst the chaos and smoke, an EMP device triggered, completely knocking out Evelyn’s comms and monitors in the command van. The trap wasn't for Volkov; it was for Lorenzo.
