We'd been tracking the Sicilian shipments for weeks—four armored trucks, loaded with weapons bound for Mexico, moving like ghosts across highways no one cared to patrol. Enzo had insisted he could trace them, and I let him. I trusted him more than most, though sometimes I wondered if even he realized how far I was willing to go to get what I wanted.
The ambush was planned down to the second. Four trucks, each one a moving fortress, and yet they didn't see us coming. Our men struck like shadows. Tires shredded, engines caught fire, and chaos swallowed the convoy whole. I moved with precision, cutting through the smoke and panic, my boots crunching against gravel and debris. The acrid tang of gunpowder and burning rubber stung my nostrils, mixing with the sharp metallic hint of spilled fuel.
The aftermath was cleaner than I expected. The convoy was silent now—my men had done their work efficiently. The drivers, the guards, all gone. Road littered with smoke and blood. The crackle of dying flames and the distant drip of fluid from a ruined engine echoed faintly across the deserted highway.
I approached the rear truck, the one that supposedly carried the "special cargo." My fingers traced the cold metal of the door, prying at the latch. With a loud groan, it gave way, and I stepped back slightly, preparing for whatever I might find inside.
And then I saw her.
She was barely standing, pale as porcelain, body trembling as if it might shatter at any moment. Hunger clawed at her lungs, exhaustion weighed her down like iron. Hollow eyes, chipped bones, shrunk shoulders—she had been broken in every conceivable way. And yet… there was something in her posture that refused to surrender, that radiated a quiet defiance. Most people were prey. This one stared back as if she'd forgotten she was in a cage. The thought was… refreshing.
Behind her, another girl huddled, smaller, trembling, trying desperately to stay unseen, to disappear. But the first one—whatever fear she carried—was contained, taut as a drawn bow.
And then my eyes caught the gun. Held steady, pointed at the door. Not flinching, not begging, not pleading. Alert. Fierce. Determined. Dangerous in a way that most people never learned to be.
I tilted my head, intrigued. Others would have crumpled, begged, or collapsed at this point. But she… she wasn't waiting to be rescued. She was assessing, calculating, watching. And in that instant, she wasn't a victim—she was a problem.
I didn't move too fast, didn't speak. I didn't need to. Watching her, observing the sharp angles of her stance, the tension in her shoulders, the fire in her eyes—it was enough. The faint hiss of smoke curling from the asphalt, the residual heat of burning tires, even the bitter tang of gunpowder in the air—all of it grounded the moment. This was not a girl to underestimate.
And that made her… interesting.