CHAPTER 152

CHAPTER 152
Dual POV

Once all was said and done, the line clicked dead and Pedro shoved his phone into his back pocket and grabbed a pair of binoculars he'd purchased some time back from the floor of the passenger seat of the car. 

It was a standard 10x42 binocular, which meant that he could clearly see as far as several kilometres away, even to the point of vividly capturing facial expressions because it made things appear closer than they really were.

This was his own little way of making sure that Celine remained in his sight, while he waited for Antonio and his brothers’ arrival.

He raised the binocular in the direction of the uncompleted building and brought it close to his eye, looking through the lens, and the first person he spotted was a familiar face.

“Armando?” he muttered to himself as he lowered the lens slowly, his eyes widening slightly in shock. 

“What the hell is he doing here?” he added, confusion clawing at his throat.

Their target from the get go was the faceless man. They hadn't expected that Armando would be the one who had sent that message to Celine, so this changed the ballgame entirely, posing a threat to their plans to nab him once and for all.

But regardless, Pedro felt that Armando’s presence wasn't entirely a disappointment, but a blessing in disguise, because after all, Antonio had put forth a bounty on his head. 

He looked through the lens of the binoculars again, just in time to see another man in the picture—a tall, younger-looking man he'd never seen before, standing beside Armando, with daring tattoos running across his right hand.

He studied the unfamiliar man with furrowed brows: his fashion sense, his dark charisma, his psychotic facial expressions while conversing with Celine. And at the end of the day, he was able to deduce that that younger looking man and the faceless man were in fact one and the same.

Moments later—roughly close to an hour—a black BMW M5 Sedan and two SUVs rolled to a stop on the same path where Pedro had been waiting patiently.

He lowered the binocular in his hand, and Matteo and Antonio stepped out of the BMW, while the Luna Nera brothers emerged from the SUVs, heading his way.

“How did it go?” Pedro asked, all of them coming to a uniform halt in front of him.

“We evacuated everyone from the company safely,” Matteo responded. “But we didn't find any bombs like he claimed to have hidden. It was all just an avenue to instill fear in Celine and get her to willingly come out to meet him.”

“What’s going on in there?” Antonio chimed in, a hint of impatience lacing his tone.

“Things are looking bad,” Pedro said with a frown, shaking his head dejectedly. “He’s here, and so is Armando.”

“Armando?” Antonio and Matteo chorused, their foreheads knitting in surprise.

“I think they might be working together,” Pedro went on. “The both of them have been hitting Celine badly.”

“What?” Antonio said as rage burned through his wide eyes, his jaw clenching tightly.

"I would have gone in, but I didn't want to put her life at risk by doing something drastic," Pedro explained, and Antonio hastily snatched the binoculars from his grip and brought it towards his eye, looking through the lens.

He could see the mastermind raising up a bloody and battered Celine from the floor along with the chair she was tied to, every nerve in his body igniting with primal rage.

“Shit,” he spat as he furiously threw the binoculars to the ground, his blood boiling. “We have to go in there right now!” he barked, pulling out his gun tucked into the back of his pants and cocking it. 

“How do we get in?” Matteo chimed in, his serious gaze on Pedro. “We need to at least know the layout of the building, as well as how many men in total are in there.”

“It's a two storey building,” Pedro began to explain. “There are roughly around 60 to 70 men on the top floor with Celine, wuth an addition of Armando and the faceless man.” He pointed in a direction. “If we take this route, there's a back path we can burst out from in order to ambush the men standing guard by the gate.”

“What are we waiting for then?” Antonio said with a lethal expression, heading towards the BMW M5.

He opened the boot and pulled out a bomb vest and a sniper rifle, shutting it. Then he returned back to where they all stood, tossing the rifle into the arms of one of the Luna Nera brothers.

“That's your station,” Antonio announced, pointing in the direction of the rooftop of an old hotel building slightly opposite the uncompleted one. “Cover us.”

“Roger that, boss,” the guy with the rifle answered, then he inserted his earplugs, quickly heading towards the rooftop of the old hotel.

Antonio began to hurry towards the back path, then Matteo and Pedro pulled out their guns and followed him, while the rest of the Luna Nera brothers trailed behind them, each one of them holding spiked batons for defence.

By this time, the sniper was already laying flat in his position on the rooftop, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

On getting to the end of the path, Antonio and the gang sprang out from hiding, he, Matteo and Pedro aiming their guns at the men at the gate. 

Caught off guard, the men in turn quickly reached for their own guns to counterattack. But before they could even do that, Antonio, Pedro and Matteo fired repeatedly into their chest, the heads of Armando and the mastermind snapping towards the direction of the stairs as the sound of the multiple gunshots reverberated through the air. Then his army of bodyguards hurriedly pulled out their guns, some holding up their batons, and others equally raising up their axes, their eyes darting around in high alert.

However, only three out of the four men standing outside the gate were gunned down to their deaths. One of them was spared as a hostage, only taking a shot to the leg.

Matteo sprang forward and grabbed the groaning hostage by the neck and put the bomb vest over him, the man's hands raising up in surrender as a gun was buried into the side of his head. 

Then Pedro opened the gate, and they all headed into the building, noiselessly climbing up the stairs. 

“What the fuck are you all standing around for?!” the mastermind barked to his men, his veins bulging on his forehead. “Go down there and see what the fuck is going on.” 

Four of his bodyguards hurriedly stepped forward, swiftly making their way towards the stairs to see what was happening.

Seeing this as his cue, the sniper on the rooftop pulled the trigger, a sharp bullet flying straight into the forehead of one of his bodyguards. 

Instantly, he took another shot. Then another, then another, until all four bodyguards had dropped dead to the ground, with bullet wounds stuck to their chest and head.

And here came Antonio and the Luna Nera brothers, marching up the stairs in their tailored suits, their faces cold and hardened as steel, and their guns aimed high at the mastermind’s bodyguards.