Free Web NovelChapter 25: "I Was A Little Busy"
The instant the door clicked shut behind Aren, the atmosphere inside the private room changed completely.
The easy posture Caio had maintained throughout dinner vanished as though it had never existed. He no longer touched his drink, nor did he bother maintaining the illusion of casual civility.
The man who remained seated at the table was not a charming guest or a wealthy businessman.
He was a mafia don.
Cold
Sharp.
Predatory.
Slowly, he turned his gaze toward Pietro.
"Is there something you haven’t told me yet, Mister Lamon?"
Across the table, Pietro visibly stiffened.
"What do you mean, Don Caio?"
His voice remained remarkably even, but the sudden sheen of sweat forming across his forehead betrayed him. Tiny beads appeared along his hairline and multiplied by the second.
Caio caught the shift instantly.
"You’re sweating."
Pietro forced a weak smile.
"It’s warm in here."
Caio leaned back slowly, every movement carrying the unsettling calm of a predator deciding where to bite.
"No," he said. "It isn’t."
Pietro swallowed.
Hard.
He had survived decades in Borgata’s underworld.
He had negotiated with killers, bribed officials, and navigated enough betrayals to fill a graveyard. Yet sitting across from Caio Sartori in this particular mood felt like facing something altogether different.
His eyelid twitched.
Then twitched again.
His jaw tightened until his teeth began to ache.
Caio tracked every microscopic shift in the man’s expression. Every tremor. Every involuntary reaction.
Every line of Pietro’s body language practically screamed guilt. It was pathetic to watch.
"You delayed this negotiation for weeks," Caio said evenly. "Now, suddenly, tonight becomes the night you’re willing to cooperate with everything."
Pietro laughed nervously.
"Y-you’re overthinking things."
"Am I?"
The question came softly.
Then, Caio leaned forward. The sudden movement made Pietro instantly flinch.
"Or are you planning something tonight, Mister Lamon?" Caio asked. "Something prepared specifically... for me?"
Pietro’s hands had begun trembling openly.
"If there’s been some misunderstanding—"
"Start talking," Caio interrupted quietly, "before I lose patience."
Pietro’s composure shattered instantly.
"Please, Don Caio," he blurted. "I didn’t have a choice—"
BANG!
The gunshot exploded outside the room.
Both men snapped toward the door instantly.
A second shot followed.
Then a third.
Then screaming erupted beyond the walls.
Shattering glass.
Tables overturning.
Footsteps thundered through the restaurant.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
"Ahhhhhh—!"
"Hands where I can see them, bitch!"
"Don’t move!"
Pietro dropped straight to the floor and scrambled beneath the table.
He remained there for less than a second.
Caio kicked the table aside with enough force to send crystal glasses, porcelain plates, and silverware exploding across the room. Pietro barely managed a scream before Caio seized him by the collar and slammed him violently against the wall.
A handgun appeared in Caio’s hand almost simultaneously, drawn from beneath his jacket in one fluid motion.
The barrel jammed beneath Pietro’s jaw.
Each word came edged with murder.
"What the fuck are you planning?"
Pietro shook so violently that his entire body rattled.
"I SWEAR THIS ISN’T ME—!"
BANG! BANG! BANG!
More gunshots erupted outside, cutting him off.
Caio’s pulse surged.
One thought immediately eclipsed all others.
’Aren.’
Every shred of his remaining patience vanished instantly. Without hesitation, he smashed the pistol across the side of Pietro’s head.
THWACK!
The impact dropped the man instantly.
Pietro collapsed unconscious at his feet.
Caio barely spared him another glance. His attention had already locked entirely onto the door. He stormed into the hallway with murders burning openly in his eyes.
The corridor outside the VIP suites had descended into complete chaos.
Gunfire ripped through the restaurant in violent bursts.
Someone crashed into a serving cart hard enough to send silverware skidding across the floor.
Farther down the hall, glass shattered across marble floors while guests screamed over one another in blind panic.
Through it all, the restaurant music still played faintly through the speakers — soft jazz, absurdly elegant against the violence.
Caio barely registered any of it. His grip tightened around the handgun as he rounded the corner at full speed—
A hand suddenly seized the front of his jacket and yanked him violently sideways.
Instinct took over instantly.
His pistol snapped upward.
His finger tightened on the trigger—
At that moment—
Crimson fabric flashed across his vision.
Platinum hair.
Caio stopped himself milliseconds before putting a bullet through Aren’s chest.
She shoved him hard against the wall inside a recessed service alcove, one handgun raised in her right hand while a dagger gleamed in the other.
"Don Caio," she whispered sharply, "why are you outside?"
For one disorienting second, he didn’t know how to answer that question.
Relief hit him first — fast, brutal, almost dizzying.
She was alive. Not bleeding. Not lying dead somewhere on the restaurant floor.
Then, irritation slammed into him immediately afterward, hot enough to rival the gunfire outside. He lowered his weapon, jaw tightening.
"What do you mean, why am I outside?" he hissed back. "Was I supposed to sit in there and do nothing?"
Aren blinked, visibly thrown by the response. "But what happened to Pietro Lamon?"
"I knocked him unconscious," Caio replied. "We can interrogate him later. Where’s Leo?"
"The entrances and exits are locked," Aren answered immediately. "I heard gunfire outside too. They’re probably already engaged. We need another route and—"
She stopped abruptly.
Without warning, her hand shot out and seized his jacket again and yanked him downward.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Bullets tore through the wall exactly where Caio’s head had been a fraction of a second earlier.
At the far end of the corridor, one of the waiters stood with a pistol raised.
Caio barely had time to aim.
Aren moved first.
Her arm snapped forward—
The dagger left her hand in a silver blur.
Ssh-tuck!
"AAARGHHHHH!"
The blade buried itself deep into the attacker’s shoulder. He collapsed to his knees screaming, the pistol slipping from his grasp and clattering across the marble.
Aren was already moving. By the time he tried to reach for the gun again, she was standing directly in front of him.
Her foot lashed out—
THWACK!
The pistol skidded violently down the corridor.
"Sorry," she said calmly, "you can’t die yet. I need you alive for interrogation."
The butt of her pistol slammed across the side of his skull.
THWACK!
The man dropped unconscious instantly.
At the exact same moment, movement erupted from the opposite corridor. Three more armed men rushed around the corner.
Caio barely had time to process it.
He raised his pistol and fired.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Three shots.
Three kills.
The attackers crumpled before they could fire.
Silence briefly reclaimed the hallway, broken only by distant screams and sporadic gunfire elsewhere in the restaurant.
Aren stared at the corpses.
"...Aren’t you keeping them alive for interrogation too?"
Caio reloaded smoothly.
"Lamon’s enough. He’s behind this anyway."
Aren frowned.
"...I don’t think he is."
Caio glanced sharply toward her.
"What makes you think that?"
"If he planned this," she said calmly while crouching beside the unconscious waiter, "he should have been armed."
She checked the man for additional weapons, retrieved her dagger, then glanced back up at Caio.
"Instead, he looked frightened. More like bait someone else is using against you."
Caio went quiet. Gunfire still echoed faintly outside, but his focus narrowed entirely onto her words.
’Damn it.’
She had a point.
Pietro Lamon had looked terrified from the second Caio requested the private room. That wasn’t the behavior of a man confidently orchestrating an assassination.
Caio exhaled slowly through his nose.
"Fine," he muttered. "Then we keep some of these bastards alive too."
"Hm..."
Aren tapped lightly at her cheek.
"Actually, maybe that won’t be necessary."
Before he could ask what the hell that meant, she caught his sleeve and tugged him farther down the corridor toward a small storage room.
She opened the door.
Inside, three armed men sat tied back-to-back on the floor.
Industrial cable secured their wrists and ankles. Gags had been stuffed into their mouths. Their faces were red from struggling.
All three looked furious.
And absolutely terrified.
Caio stared at them for several long seconds before slowly turning toward Aren.
"...When exactly did you do this?"
"Earlier," she replied simply. "When I followed the armed waiter."
His stare sharpened.
"...And you almost forgot about them?"
Aren looked genuinely apologetic.
"I’m sorry. And I was a little busy."
One of the restrained men made a frantic muffled sound through the gag.
Caio quietly closed the storage-room door again.
’God, she’s terrifying.’
Outwardly, his expression barely shifted.
"Any idea where the safest exit is?" he asked calmly.
Aren nodded immediately.
"The kitchen service exit. The main entrance is probably surrounded already."
"Good. Let’s move."
Together, they advanced through the service corridors. The deeper they pushed into the restaurant, the uglier the chaos became.
Guests fled blindly between overturned tables. Wine spread across the marble like spilled blood. Smoke drifted faintly through the air from overturned candles and gunpowder residue.
Just as they made another turn, two gunmen emerged near the wine storage corridor.
Caio shot the first directly through the throat.
BANG!
The second barely managed to turn before Aren collided with him.
Her elbow drove hard into his ribs—
The knife flashed once—
Blood sprayed across the wall.
The man collapsed choking.
"Left side," Aren warned immediately.
Another shooter emerged around the turn leading toward the kitchen corridor.
Caio pivoted.
BANG!
The man’s head snapped backward before he could fire.
They kept moving.
By the time they reached the kitchen corridor, four more bodies littered the floor behind them.
Caio swept a quick glance across the dead men before looking toward Aren walking calmly beside him.
Violence fit her far too naturally. Too efficiently.
Like breathing.
"You could’ve killed the men at the Summit," he said carefully, watching her face. "But you didn’t. Why?"
Aren looked at him, visibly confused by the question.
"The room was very beautiful."
Caio’s steps slowed.
"...What?"
"Don Gian might have had to pay a lot to clean it afterward."
"...I see."
He decided then and there that there were some subjects better left unexplored. Rubbing a hand across his temple, he kicked open the kitchen door.
Suddenly— free𝑤ebnovel.com
Two attackers lunged straight toward him.
One armed with a handgun.
The other clutching a kitchen knife.
Aren moved instantly to intercept—
"Don Caio—"
The gun fired.
BANG!
