Chapter 199
Vitale turned to Jerry and Amboni, giving orders, "The base is on highest alert. Marco's target must be Eva. Triple the guards around Eva's room, alternate between visible and hidden sentries, and everyone entering or leaving, including medical staff, must be double-checked by Jerry and me. Also..."
He looked at Eva, who was sitting on the sofa, her face still pale but her eyes resolute, and at Isabella, who was holding Eva's hand tightly with a worried expression.
"We're going to put on a show for Marco," Vitale said, his voice carrying a cold, calculated edge, "a reunion he's been dreaming of, where his lover decides to leave with him."
In the next few hours, the medical base appeared calm on the surface, but underneath, tension was brewing.
Vitale had set up an invisible trap, waiting for the old fish to take the bait.
Meanwhile, in the depths of an abandoned industrial zone in the southern outskirts of Arcturus—a maze of rundown buildings and sewage-filled streets—gunshots suddenly shattered the silence of the night.
Victor's elite team, after days of thorough searches and a final tip from an informant, had pinpointed Barton's last hideout.
The firefight was short but fierce.
Barton and his last few loyal followers fought desperately, like cornered beasts.
In the first round of gunfire, Aldo was taken down by Victor himself, collapsing into the filthy water.
Barton, relying on his knowledge of the terrain and sharp shooting skills, fought while retreating, trying to escape through a backup ventilation duct.
But Victor had anticipated this.
When Barton, battered and exhausted, crawled out of the other end of the duct, barely able to take a breath of relatively fresh air, a cold gun barrel was already pressed against the back of his head.
"Game over, Barton," Victor's voice sounded behind him, devoid of any emotion, "our boss wants a word with you."
Barton's face twitched violently, his eyes flashing with despair and defiance, but more than that, a near-mad sneer.
He knew he was done for.
But he was also certain that Marco, the shadow hiding in the deepest darkness, wouldn't be caught so easily.
Back at the medical base, Vitale's play unfolded as planned.
Marco, in disguise, used his expert skills in changing his appearance and his precise knowledge of the base's outer security weaknesses to breach layer after layer of defenses, infiltrating the special care floor where Eva was.
He posed as a tall, middle-aged nun with a sorrowful face, holding forged church visitation documents, claiming to come pray for the gravely ill Eva and offer blessings.
His acting was flawless—his eyes full of pity, his tone gentle—as he approached Eva's room.
Through hidden cameras and listening devices outside the room, Vitale, Jerry, and Amboni, in the monitoring room next door, clearly witnessed the meeting between Marco and Eva.
Eva's performance was equally impressive.
Dressed in a hospital gown, she curled up on the bed, her eyes vacant.
Marco hinted that he could take her away from this place to somewhere safe.
Eva, at the right moment, showed hesitation and a hint of reliance, pleading with the "nun" to take her away to a place without Vitale.
Marco felt a surge of secret joy, believing that even with her damaged memories, deep down, his creation still depended on him.
He quietly arranged with Eva to come back at midnight, during the guard shift change, when security would be lax, to take her away through a secret passage only he knew.
In the monitoring room, Vitale stared coldly at Marco's fake, hypocritical face on the screen.
He knew the fish had fully taken the bait.
As midnight approached, most areas of the medical base dimmed their lights, switching to nighttime mode.
The guards patrolled as usual, but countless eyes and gun barrels in the shadows were already locked on Eva's room.
Eva, as planned, changed into dark, easy-to-move-in clothes and sat quietly on the edge of the bed, waiting. Her heart pounded in her chest, half from the nerves of acting, half from fear and determination for the confrontation ahead.
Marco appeared right on time, his movements even quicker and stealthier than during the day.
He easily knocked out the two guards at the door, slipped into the room, and gestured for Eva to stay quiet.
"Come with me, child. God will guide us out of this cage," Marco whispered, taking Eva's hand.
Eva followed obediently. The two moved one behind the other through the dim corridor, avoiding the main surveillance cameras, taking a rarely used internal passage to the logistics area, and finally exiting the main building through a small, disguised maintenance door.
Outside was a small grove at the edge of the medical base, beyond which lay the perimeter wall and the deeper darkness of the night.
A black van, lights off and engine quietly idling, waited in the shadows at the edge of the grove—clearly Marco's pre-arranged getaway vehicle.
"Get in, quick!" Marco opened the van's back door, urging Eva.
But Eva didn't get in right away. She stopped, turned around, and looked at Marco.
In the night, her face was half-lit, half-shadowed. The confusion and fear in her deep green eyes had vanished, replaced by a cold clarity and a trace of mockery.
"Marco," Eva's voice was clear and steady, cutting through the silent night.
A flicker of disbelief flashed in Marco's eyes, quickly turning into rage at being tricked and a chilling wariness.
He realized instantly—this was a trap.
"You..." he barely got out a word.
Suddenly, countless blinding beams of flashlight pierced through the surrounding grove.
At the same time, the sharp sounds of guns being cocked and safeties being switched off echoed densely.
Vitale's figure emerged slowly from behind the brightest beam, like a god of vengeance materializing from the night.
He held an assault rifle with a silencer, the barrel aimed steadily at Marco.
"Good evening, Marco," Vitale's voice was colder than the night breeze, "or should I call you a traitor? Executioner? Or the demon who steals hearts?"
Marco stood still, facing over a dozen dark gun barrels and Vitale's piercing gaze that seemed to cut through him. The fake compassion on his face completely peeled away, revealing the handsome yet sinister and calculating true face beneath.
His eyes quickly scanned the surroundings, assessing the situation, and a twisted smile slowly curled on his lips.
"Vitale," Marco's voice returned to its unsettling tone, "it seems Liliana's heart hasn't completely robbed you of your senses. You've set up a nice trap. But..."
His gaze moved past Vitale, as if searching for something or waiting for something.
"You think I'd come here unprepared?"
Almost as soon as he finished speaking, a massive explosion erupted from the direction of the medical base's main building in the distance.
Flames shot into the sky, and even through the grove and buildings, the rolling black smoke and faint cries of chaos could be seen and heard.
The sudden explosion caused an instinctive stir and distraction among the surrounding forces.
In that split second, Marco moved.
He didn't charge at Vitale or attempt to grab Eva, who was right beside him. Instead, with an unbelievable speed and a strange angle, he rolled backward, pulling out a compact submachine gun from under his nun's robe and spraying bullets wildly at the light sources and suspected ambush points.
At the same time, the black van that had seemed to be Marco's getaway vehicle had its doors violently kicked open from the inside.
Several figures dressed in black, moving with swift precision, jumped out, armed with automatic weapons. They too fired wildly in all directions, clearly well-trained operatives.
Their firepower was fierce and accurate, instantly suppressing some of Vitale's team's counterattacks and creating a curtain of bullets and smoke at the edge of the grove.
"Protect Isabella and Eva! Fall back!" Vitale shouted sharply, pulling the trigger. Bullets flew toward where Marco had rolled, but Marco dodged nimbly, the shots only hitting dirt and tree trunks.
Under the cover of his operatives and the chaos and smoke from the explosion, Marco made a few swift moves, forcibly tearing a gap in the encirclement and sprinting toward the perimeter wall in the opposite direction of the explosion.
There, a rope was dangling.
"Chase him!" Vitale's eyes burned with rage as he led the pursuit himself.
However, Marco had clearly planned his escape route meticulously.
He climbed the wall, flipped over, and on the other side, a powerful off-road vehicle was already waiting for him.
His operatives fought while retreating, using fierce firepower to briefly hold off the pursuers.
By the time Vitale and his team breached the wall, all they saw were the taillights of the off-road vehicle flashing at the end of the street before it quickly turned into a side road and vanished into the maze-like streets of Arcturus in the dead of night.
"Fuck!" Vitale slammed his fist into the nearby wall, hard enough to crack the solid brick surface.
Marco's cunning and thorough preparation far exceeded his expectations.
More importantly, was that explosion a diversion to draw them away, or just meant to create chaos?
Soon, Jerry reported through the communicator.
The explosion had occurred in an unimportant warehouse at the base, caused by a pre-placed remote-controlled bomb. No one was killed, only a few outer guards sustained minor injuries, but it did cause significant chaos. It also proved how well-connected and prepared Marco was in this area.
In the following days, Vitale mobilized all his resources in Arcturus, searching the entire city for Marco like a man possessed.
Yet, the man seemed to have vanished into thin air, disappearing without a trace.
His previous hideouts, possible safehouses, and even the remnants of networks tied to Thorn of Justice appeared to have been cleared out or gone completely dormant in advance.
Just when Vitale was almost convinced Marco had fled, a piece of expensive intelligence, obtained through special channels, landed in his hands.
The intel revealed that on the night of the explosion, a plane registered under a foreign shell company quietly took off from an unremarkable private small airport in Arcturus, heading to Eldoria.
Based on the blurry surveillance footage left at the airport, one of the passengers had a build strikingly similar to Marco's.
More crucially, the intel clearly stated that the person who assisted Marco in arranging this emergency escape and provided partial cover was a name Vitale was familiar with—Blake.
That same Blake, a dealer in Arcturus's gray market, who had been taught a lesson by Vitale over a racetrack incident and later received a "greeting" call from Marco.
Blake! This greedy, cowardly opportunist dared to betray him and help Marco escape?
New grudges mixed with old ones, combined with the frustration of Marco's escape and the burning rage for revenge, instantly consumed the last shred of Vitale's patience.