Chapter 5: The Bulletproof Lie
Dante slammed into the SUV.
Mara screamed.
Blood exploded across his shirt.
Celeste stepped out of the vehicle, the suppressor still smoking.
“You should’ve stayed in the ballroom.”
She fired again.
Dante rolled behind the engine block.
The second bullet shattered the headlight.
“Mara, move!”
She didn’t.
She grabbed the dead commander’s rifle.
Three shots.
Celeste ducked behind the SUV.
More snipers opened fire from the tree line.
The forest erupted.
Moretti soldiers scattered.
One by one, they dropped.
“Fall back!”
A grenade landed beside the convoy.
Dante grabbed Mara and threw her behind a stone barrier.
The explosion flipped an SUV onto its side.
Flames climbed into the rain.
Mara looked at Dante.
“You’ve been shot.”
He ripped open his shirt.
A flattened bullet fell to the ground.
A black Kevlar vest.
“You’re wearing armor.”
“I had a feeling tonight would end badly.”
A sniper round struck the stone inches from Mara’s face.
Dante returned fire.
One flash disappeared from the ridge.
Celeste’s voice echoed through the smoke.
“You still don’t understand who she is.”
Mara fired toward the sound.
Silence.
Then footsteps.
Too many.
Dante checked the rifle.
“Eight rounds.”
“That’s not enough.”
“It never is.”
The remaining soldiers regrouped behind the burning vehicles.
A black helicopter appeared overhead.
Its searchlight cut through the rain.
Dante looked up.
“That’s not mine.”
The helicopter doors opened.
Ropes dropped.
Masked mercenaries descended into the forest.
Professional.
Fast.
Coordinated.
“They’re taking the keys!”
One mercenary charged Mara.
She sidestepped instinctively, trapped his arm, and drove the rifle butt into his throat.
He collapsed.
Another attacker came from behind.
She turned before he touched her.
Elbow.
Knee.
Disarm.
The pistol was suddenly in her hand.
Dante watched in disbelief.
“You’ve done this before.”
“I haven’t!”
“You’re fighting like someone who has.”
The helicopter’s machine gun opened up.
Bullets shredded the trees.
Dante spotted a drainage tunnel beneath the road.
“There!”
They sprinted.
Mercenaries chased them.
A burst of gunfire forced them into the tunnel.
Darkness swallowed them.
The tunnel narrowed into an old storm sewer.
Water rushed around their legs.
The helicopter couldn’t follow.
For a moment—
Only silence.
Mara leaned against the wall, breathing hard.
“What if that death certificate is real?”
Dante looked at her.
“Then someone erased you.”
She opened her hand.
The second brass key was gone.
Her face drained.
“I lost it.”
“No.”
Dante pointed into the water.
A gloved hand rose from the darkness.
Someone had been hiding beneath the current.
The figure held the second key between two fingers.
Then he stepped forward.
Gray hair.
Scar across the jaw.
The same man from Vault 7.
He smiled.
“You finally remembered how to fight, Lucia.”
Mara froze.
He tossed the key back to her.
“I’m not your enemy.”
Dante raised his pistol.
The old man looked him straight in the eyes.
“Your father ordered me to protect her.”
A single gunshot echoed through the tunnel.
The old man jerked backward.
A bullet tore through his chest.
He collapsed into the water.
A shadow stepped out behind him.
Marco.
Dante’s consigliere.
His oldest friend.
Marco lowered the smoking pistol.
May you like
“I’m sorry, Dante.”
Then he aimed the gun at Mara’s head.
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