Juri’s frantic image flickered, distorted by poor signal, but his words were crystalline in their terror. “Nola! They took Nola!”
Kida didn’t scream. She didn’t even flinch. Her brain, confronted with an immediate, undeniable threat to Nola, didn’t register panic. It registered an urgent, complex problem, precisely the kind her architectural drafting background had trained her to solve. Kida shifted her attention from Juri's pixelated face to the bank of screens displaying the compound schematics. Lazaro's fist cracked down on the console beside her, rattling the tempered glass.
Lazaro’s face was a mask of utter devastation, his previous feral joy evaporated into something colder than rage. “Where. Is. She.” Each word was a chip of ice. He wasn't asking; he was demanding coordinates for an extermination.
Kida, already toggling through databases, ignored his tone. “Enzo Vanni. He controls the Portus Vista gaming palace. It’s a vertical entertainment complex, occupies three blocks on the waterfront. Structural integrity is compromised by a sub-grade water table and a cantilevered observation deck. I submitted a competitive bid for their last expansion, so I have the full plans.” Her voice remained level, already sifting through the noise for relevant data.
“Plans?” Juri squawked, still on screen, oblivious to the shift in Kida’s demeanor. “Kida, your sister is kidnapped! This isn’t a zoning permit application!”
“It’s exactly that, Juri,” Kida replied without looking at him. “Every building has a fatal flaw. Every plan has a point of entry, a load-bearing wall that can be removed. Enzo built his entire empire on a foundation of poor engineering.” She brought up a vibrant 3D rendering of a sprawling, neon-splashed tower. “There. The Portus Vista.”
Lazaro watched her, his obsidian gaze sweeping over the blueprints she projected onto the main screen. Lazaro stood rigid, his breath hot and even, silent as she worked. He simply absorbed every calculation, every quiet, methodical utterance. He recognized the shift; Kida wasn't just reacting. She was taking control, transforming chaos into a quantifiable equation, and he found it horrifyingly, utterly captivating.
“The roof access is the most heavily fortified point for an assault,” Kida began, zooming in on the tower's apex. “Too obvious. The loading docks are reinforced to withstand direct ramming by heavy vehicles. Again, too much resistance. But the service elevators for the executive suites… they run adjacent to the primary structural columns, from sub-basement to penthouse. If we can compromise the integrity of the secondary shear wall on level 42, we create a clear path to their private security hub, bypassing most of the ground-floor patrols.”
Lazaro’s lips curved in a slow, chilling smile. “You want to demolish the high-rise.”
“No,” Kida corrected, tapping a specific point on the blueprint. “I want to *remodel* it. Violently.”
He reached into his jacket, pulling out a heavy, intricately carved ring fashioned from blood-red rubies and darkened gold. The Cante Don’s ancestral ring. He took Kida’s left hand, his thumb tracing the smooth skin of her palm before he slid the massive ornament onto her middle digit. The rubies caught the glow of the screens, gleaming like fresh wounds. It fit perfectly.
“My Don,” Lazaro rumbled, his voice dropping an octave. He turned toward the doorway, where two lieutenants stood sentry—Balus, whose jaw was notched with scar tissue, and Zela, fingers resting near her belt. They stood like statues, awaiting orders.
“Balus. Zela,” Lazaro commanded, his voice now a whip-crack. “This is your Don. Her word is law. Her plan is gospel. Any deviation, any hesitation, will be met with extreme prejudice. Do you understand?”
Balus, a man whose reputation for brutality preceded him in every darkened alley of Alta-Mora, dropped to one knee. “To the death, Don.”
Zela, usually stoic, followed suit. “Loyalty without question, Don Kida.”
Kida merely nodded, already pointing to a section of the blueprints. “Zela, you’ll need a team capable of handling high-grade thermite charges. Balus, your crew will need breaching tools and a distraction. We’ll need to move fast. There are maintenance corridors that link directly to the adjacent parking garage. If we create a diversion on the lower levels, we can get a team in through the service entrance on the 42nd floor before they can reinforce.”
Hours later, a fleet of discreet, unmarked delivery vans rumbled through the moonlit streets of Alta-Mora, their sides emblazoned with the logo of ‘Gourmet Gala Catering.’ Inside, the usual insulated food warmers had been gutted and repurposed to conceal an arsenal that could arm a small army. Lazaro, sleek in a dark suit, checked the action of a custom-built shotgun. Balus strapped on a vest bristling with blades. Zela, cool as ever, methodically loaded clips into a compact submachine gun.
Juri, however, was a different story. He clutched a vintage Tommy gun, its drum magazine comically oversized in his trembling hands. He’d insisted, after watching a particularly bad movie about the Chicago mob, that it was the “classic choice.”
“Are you sure you know how to operate that, Juri?” Kida asked, adjusting a small, concealed earpiece. She wore dark tactical gear, surprisingly comfortable, and moved with a focused calm that was almost unnerving.
“Of course, Kida! It’s all about the spray-and-pray!” Juri declared, then accidentally nudged the safety, making a small metallic click. Lazaro shot him a look that promised a slow, agonizing end if he so much as sneezed in the wrong direction.
“Just stay behind me, Juri,” Kida sighed, then gave a crisp nod to Lazaro. “Let’s go. Time is a variable we cannot afford to lose.”
The infiltration was textbook. The catering vans pulled up to the resort's main entrance, delivering late-night crates. The distraction team, led by Balus, created an immediate, chaotic scene in the lobby involving a spilled champagne fountain and a surprisingly realistic flash mob. While the floor guards turned toward the commotion, Kida, Lazaro, Zela, and Juri slipped into the service elevator bank.
They moved with brutal efficiency. The 42nd floor, housing executive offices and a private lounge, was eerily quiet. Zela’s team quickly placed thermite charges on the designated shear wall. The small detonations were muffled, precise, creating a gaping hole into a brightly lit corridor.
“Clear,” Zela whispered into her comms.
Kida led the way, stepping through the smoking breach, her movements fluid and decisive. They cleared the corridor, clipping camera feeds and dropping two sentries before either could draw a holster flap. They breached the surveillance hub, neutralized the operators, and Kida jacked directly into the internal terminal, scanning the closed-circuit feeds.
“He’s on the roof,” Kida announced, her voice tight. “Level 50. And… Nola is with him.”
They ascended the final floors in a chilling silence, the sounds of distant sirens from the diversion below barely reaching them. The roof access door, heavy and reinforced, was the last barrier. Lazaro gestured to Zela’s team. A swift, practiced breach, and the door flew inward with a clang that echoed across the vast, open space of the rooftop.
Cool night air rushed in. The panoramic view of Alta-Mora, shimmering with a million neon lights, stretched out beneath them. And in the center of the helipad, bathed in the harsh glow of emergency lights, stood Enzo Vanni, a cruel smile on his face. His hand was pressed against Nola’s back, a gleaming silver pistol held firmly to her temple.
Nola, utterly oblivious to the life-or-death situation, twisted her head to glare at Enzo. “Honestly, Mr. Vanni! This is just excessive! What kind of olive oil executive holds a person hostage on a helipad? This is a hostile corporate takeover, not a negotiation! And you’re wrinkling my new jumpsuit!”