Chapter 54

Chapter 54
Lina's POV

The music in the auditorium changed to a slow song.

String instruments flowed languidly through the warm golden light. The couples in the center of the dance floor gradually slowed their steps. Some rested their heads on their partners' shoulders. Others simply stopped and stood in corners talking softly.

The crystal chandelier's light was dimmed to its lowest setting. The entire auditorium was enveloped in an ambiguous amber glow, as if contained in a giant honey jar.

Maggie held my hand and wouldn't let go, saying the next song was also her favorite and we absolutely had to finish dancing to it.

Her fingers were warm and soft, palm with a thin layer of sweat—probably from dancing too enthusiastically with Fred earlier.

Fred stood to the side, his dress tie askew, more sweat on his forehead than Maggie, but the way he looked at Maggie held a clumsy focus.

"I have to leave after this dance," I told Maggie. "Luca is waiting for me outside."

Maggie blinked, corners of her mouth lifting in a meaningful smile.

"Go ahead, go ahead," she released my hand and gave my back a light push. "Fred's taking me for a late-night snack anyway. You not going is perfect—saves us from having a third wheel."

Fred's face turned red beside her as he stammered out an "yeah."

I curved my lips, turned and walked through the edge of the dance floor toward the auditorium's side door.

Passing the champagne tower, I instinctively glanced over, only to find Cecelia no longer standing in her original position.

So I swept my gaze across the crowd and found her sitting on a chair in the corner, holding that glass of champagne she'd never changed from the beginning, her gaze quietly resting on the center of the dance floor.

Cecelia's dark green skirt hem fell to her ankles, reflecting a very faint pearlescent sheen under the lights.

Her expression was very calm—not the kind of calm that's performed, but the vacant kind that comes after completing all tasks.

Her mission was indeed completely finished.

Dmitri's people were caught. Alessandro was controlled. Her performance was over.

She was waiting for her own curtain call.

I didn't walk over. Everyone's way of closing out is different. Some people need bustle, some need quiet.

I pushed open the auditorium's side door. Cold wind rushed in from the corridor. The dress skirt hem lifted gently at my knees.

Luca stood at the side door at the corridor's end, deep blue suit under a black overcoat, an unlit cigarette in his hand.

Hearing footsteps, he turned to look at me. Those deep brown eyes were filled with warmth.

"Finished?" he asked.

"Mm, the auditorium side is finished." I walked before him, gathering my windblown hair. "Four at the back kitchen passage. One at the emergency passage."

Luca nodded slightly, then as usual swept me from head to toe—he always worried I'd be injured.

"I'm fine. Are we going to Brooklyn now?"

"Right, going to Brooklyn." Luca repeated, then somehow produced a familiar beverage and handed it to me.

I took it and opened it. The aroma of hot chocolate diffused in the air. The familiar scent involuntarily settled my heart somewhat.

I held the cup and followed him out the side door. A dark SUV was parked in the parking lot, engine already running, headlights cutting two straight beams through the night.

The passenger door was open. A neatly folded black bulletproof vest and a set of combat gear lay on the seat.

I glanced at Luca. He walked around to the driver's side and pulled open the door, movements smooth as flowing water, only tossing over one sentence: "Put it on."

The car drove out the school gate, heading toward Brooklyn.

Manhattan's lights rapidly retreated outside the car window. The Empire State Building's spire shrank smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror.

Luca steered with one hand, passing me his phone with the other.

On the screen was a real-time satellite image of a Red Hook warehouse. The top floor was marked with a red circle. The surrounding streets, ports, and freight passages were all marked with lines of different colors.

"Dmitri is in the room on the east side of the top floor," Luca said. "Latest intelligence just received—Raven has two more small teams on the outskirts of New York, stationed in Queens and the Bronx respectively. Most likely already on their way to provide support. We have a one-hour time window."

I nodded, calculating the timeline in my mind.

Outside the car window, Manhattan's lights were gradually replaced by Brooklyn's low warehouses and docks.

The air began carrying the briny smell of seawater. The spacing between roadside streetlights grew wider and wider.

Not far away, the dock warehouses of Red Hook revealed their deep gray outlines in the night, like a giant beast dormant on the coastline.

The destination was a three-story warehouse converted into apartments, exterior walls of dark red old brick covered in dried ivy vines.

All windows were sealed with iron sheets or wood boards. Only the window on the east side of the third floor showed a thread of extremely thin light. Dmitri was behind that window.

Luca parked the car in shadows two blocks from the target building, killed the engine and lights. He opened the earpiece. The encrypted high-frequency channel's notification tone chirped softly once.

His voice came through the earpiece, several degrees lower than face-to-face.

"East side room on third floor. One main entrance, one fire escape exit. Only Dmitri on the top floor. His guard team in the third floor corridor and second floor stairwell. Estimated six to eight people. Team A cuts in from the front, Team B seals off fire escape and dock direction. We take the back door."

"I'm going with you on the front," I said.

Luca turned to look at me in the darkness, paused a moment, then reached out and tightened my bulletproof vest shoulder strap a bit more.

"Alright."

We entered through the back door—a rust-covered iron door. The lock had already been picked by advance intelligence personnel. The door shaft was oiled and made no sound when pushed.

The first floor was an abandoned warehouse piled with wooden pallets and rusted shelving.

The air was thick with dust and the damp smell of old wood. In the darkness, only the faint electrical current in the earpiece and the rhythm of each other's breathing.

Luca was two steps ahead and to my left. His pace was the frequency most familiar to me—not fast, not slow. When his sole landed, the center of gravity transfer was smooth and silent.

Of all the dark infiltration techniques learned at Raven, his footwork didn't belong to any school I'd seen. He moved like a lynx in the night, every step landing in a safe zone.

At the second floor stairwell, two guards were conversing in low voices. One leaned against the wall smoking, the cigarette's red glow flickering in the darkness. The other had his hand on the holster at his waist, but his stance was somewhat slack.

Dmitri seemed to have transferred his elite forces away. Those left guarding him were all peripheral mercenaries—all flaws in my eyes.

I stopped behind Luca, raising two fingers to indicate positions to him.

I circled from the side, stepping over a pre-marked support pillar, avoiding all the broken glass and loose floorboards that might make noise.

At less than a meter's distance, that person still hadn't sensed my presence.

I covered his mouth and nose with one hand, used the knife handle with the other to strike across his neck, then gently lowered him to the ground following the direction his body went limp.

On the other side, Luca dealt with the other person almost simultaneously. His method was quieter than mine—a naked choke. Before the opponent could react, he was laid on the ground without even half a sound escaping.

After confirming there was no ambush, we headed upstairs.

The iron door at the end of the third floor corridor stood ajar. The light leaking from the door crack was brighter than before, casting a long narrow yellow band on the floor.

No shadows moved. No footsteps. The corridor was too quiet—unnaturally so.

Luca paused at the door, turned his head and said in an extremely low voice: "He's waiting for us."

I gripped my gun tightly and nodded. Luca reached out and pushed open that iron door.

The room wasn't large. The furnishings were simple to the point of spartan—just an iron-frame bed, a wooden table, a chair.

On the table sat an old laptop computer, the screen showing real-time surveillance footage of the auditorium.

Next to the computer sat half a cup of unfinished black tea. Tea stains had dried on the cup wall into a thin dark brown film.

Dmitri sat in the chair, back to us.

Hearing our footsteps, he didn't turn around. He just slowly picked up the teacup from the table, took a sip, then said: "Twelve minutes earlier than I estimated."

I closed the iron door behind us. The door shaft made a dull metal engaging sound, echoing once in the empty room before returning to silence.

Dmitri slowly turned the chair around.

"Sit." He indicated with his chin the only two chairs in the room—one he was sitting in, the other against the wall with a thin layer of dust on the seat. "You two, aren't you tired standing for so long."

I didn't sit. Neither did Luca.

Dmitri wasn't surprised. He just shrugged and picked up the teacup for another sip.

"You finally brought him to see me." Dmitri set down the teacup, gaze moving from me to Luca. "Mr. Moretti, I've heard so much about you. You look younger than in photographs."

Luca didn't answer. He only returned the same calm gaze while Dmitri examined him.

The two men's gazes collided in the dim yellow light. No sparks, no confrontation, only a mutual scrutiny that could almost be called polite.

Like two chess players taking their seats at opposite ends of the board, neither in a hurry to make the first move.

"You should know why we came," I said.

"Of course." Dmitri leaned back in the chair, hands folded over his knees. "However, why don't we have Lina explain first how she tricked Mr. Luca's brother, Antonio?"