#50 - Man Down

#50 - Man Down
Caterina Bellini

The place looked like hell. Before, I admired the structure, the beautiful and enriching architecture. Now, everything was collapsing. Explosions and more explosions were happening, turning that ethereal place into a war zone.

Victoria showed up at the last minute to congratulate me and catch up. However, we were there without exchanging a single useful word, only for giving first aid.

She had studied medicine, and used me to study, so I learned a few things.

Although Vincenzo was very good at bandaging me, I thought he was better with a gun in his hand. I felt safe that way.

It was a surprise that Adrian protected me after the scene he made earlier. So it is true when they say that even a bad person always has a good side inside them.

I hadn't changed my mind about him, but it made me regain a little of the respect I once felt.

After tending to Adrian, Victoria and I were at a spot where more windows had shattered. The white marble of the lobby had taken on shades of gray and red. Fire and blood.

The floor was slippery, and we had to be very careful not to accidentally fall onto the shards.

The scene before us looked like something out of a nightmare. Councilors, Dons, Donnas... no one was unscathed. Those closest to the columns were unconscious; others were screaming, begging for help. Some bodies, however, remained motionless under pieces of glass.

I felt the cold, familiar fear of death, not that of others, but my own, rising in my stomach. It was the same ice that accompanied me in old sensations, in past lives. But there was no time for that. My mind went into automatic mode, trained by the need to survive.

Inside, I was torn apart. Outside, I needed to be precise and focused.

Deep down, I was exhausted and needed rest.

Sirens were already echoing in the distance, but inside, time seemed different. The sound was muffled, with wails and murmurs mixed with groans and breaking glass.

The boom of the explosions still echoed, making me think I was losing my mind.

Victoria was crouched with Donna Falcone, improvising a splint with a piece of wood and the woman's own uniform belt. I joined a group of lightly wounded, trying to check who was still breathing.

I had to ask a security guard for help. "Keep pressure on it. Don't let go until someone replaces you."

He nodded, his face white with the panic of someone who had never seen blood in his life.

We couldn't afford to stop. Our priority was simple: those who could be saved now. The Dons had doctors, they had men. The children and the elderly did not.

As I tried to stop the bleeding of a guard hit in the leg, my eyes scanned the chaos. And that's when I noticed something different.

Victoria noticed almost at the same instant I did.

Amidst the smoke coming through the shattered windows, there was a shadow. A tall, still silhouette, dressed in black.

He wasn't helping anyone. Just looking, like someone observing a work of art.

I felt my whole body stiffen. I blinked, and in a second, the figure disappeared, swallowed by the smoke and suspended dust.

But the image was imprinted.

Fabrizio.

The name exploded inside my mind like a forbidden memory. The slender body and the scar were characteristic. The interrogator who has ties to the Ferrari family, Fabrizio. The man who executed what she didn't want to dirty her own hands with. The one who was supposed to execute Victoria.

My blood ran hot.

Everything made sense, because the attack was not random. Those explosions, the chaos, the calculated timing were a form of distraction for an obscure reason that I didn't know.

Nathalia had been staying in the complex for some time, brought by Adrian. She knew the schedules, the escape routes, the security scheme, the camera blind spots. She followed his routine and knew everything.

What if she... had been the trigger?

My mind was working fast. The logic was cold, and the reality sounded too cruel. She was here. She had access, and she definitely had a motive.

"Vic... did you see that?"

She nodded. Vincenzo watched us, worried.

"Any trouble?" he asked, but the figure was no longer there.

"Nothing that can get attention now. We have a lot to do," Victoria stated, avoiding the subject.

I looked around, searching for Victoria. I wanted to confirm if she had also recognized him, but before I could speak, something caught my attention.

The spot where Luca and the guards had left Adrian seriously wounded after protecting me was empty.

The blood-stained floor indicated that he hadn't gone far. But then, a different sound, a dragging of feet, came from the side smoke, near the most destroyed point of the hall.

Adrian emerged from there.

His suit ripped, his shoulder bleeding, his face pale. He moved by pure instinct, his body collapsing, but his eyes still burning with adrenaline. And in his arms, he was carrying someone.

Nathalia.

She was unconscious, her dress in tatters, her forehead cut. Blood ran down to her chin, staining the light fabric. Adrian could barely stand, but he held her carefully, like someone who truly cared.

He placed her on an intact table and staggered, exhausted. His body slumped next to hers, as if the air had run out. There was too much smoke.

The scene was this: Adrian had bled for me, but he had dragged himself to her. It was sick loyalty, a distorted and bizarre love that matched both of them. I ran to them. Victoria followed right behind.

"Pressure here," she said, placing her hand over Adrian's shoulder wound. "He's losing too much blood."

I grabbed a cloth from the floor and cleaned Nathalia's face. She was still breathing, but irregularly.

The improvised paramedics began to arrive. We grabbed first aid kits from the destroyed vehicles.

"IV line on him. Now. And compress on her head," Victoria instructed, already returning to practical mode.

Then she shot me a quick look.

"Do you realize what this means?"

I nodded, not daring to say it out loud. But both of us knew Nathalia had something to do with this attack. The big question was why.

Soon, the survivors began to regroup. Don Rossi, always venomous, wiped blood from his chin and pointed his gaze at Vincenzo, who was a few feet away, helping a wounded guard.

"An attack with three explosions, at the Cúpula," Rossi said, loud enough for everyone to hear when the movement had calmed down. "On the day the Leone Famiglia gains the Bellini lands. Coincidence?"

Rossi took a step forward.

"Don Leone, you are the only one with the resources and structure for an operation like this. Don Monti is wounded... and you, conveniently, emerge as the hero."

The whispers began. Doubts cast into the wind, capable of tearing down a wall.

It was a plan to bring him down.