Chapter Sixteen
"No Mercy in the Dark"
Rain fell in sheets, soaking the pavement of the dockyards. The night was thick with silence, broken only by the distant hum of a cargo ship and the occasional flicker of faulty streetlights.
Aurora stood in the back of an armored SUV, cloaked in a long black trench coat, the collar turned up, her dark eyes hidden behind matte sunglasses despite the darkness. Around her were four of her deadliest enforcers—Anton, the ex-Spetsnaz demolitions expert; Valeria, a knife-wielding ex-stripper who had killed more men than she'd seduced; Luca, her most loyal driver and gunman; and Darius, the newest, hungry for blood and validation.
The target: a warehouse controlled by a former ally turned traitor—Romero Diaz, who had sold out her arms shipment location to Moretti's men.
Tonight, that debt would be paid.
Aurora's voice cut through the radio silence. Calm. Precise.
"Ten minutes," she said. "In and out. Burn the files. Kill the guards. Leave Romero alive long enough to regret it."
Anton cracked his knuckles. Valeria loaded her twin pistols. Luca revved the engine.
No one questioned her. Not when Aurora moved like this.
The SUV rolled through the gates like a shadow on wheels, headlights off. The perimeter guards didn't know what hit them—silenced shots dropped them before they could draw their weapons. Darius ran forward, sweeping the back alley, disabling the cameras with a jammer as Anton planted C-4 on the eastern wall.
Boom.
The explosion wasn't deafening, but the shockwave sent panic through the building.
Inside, men scrambled. Shouts echoed.
Aurora moved with grace and death in every step, her twin Glocks drawn, her heels echoing in puddles of blood and rain.
A thug lunged out of the smoke—she shot him twice. Chest, forehead. No hesitation.
She didn't blink.
Valeria was already slicing through another man's throat near the storage shelves, grinning through the spray. Darius kicked down a door and mowed down three others in one clean sweep, while Luca covered the flank.
They stormed through the first floor like wolves in a slaughterhouse.
Romero's voice rang out over a megaphone from above.
"Aurora! I didn't mean to cross you! It was Moretti—he made me!"
Aurora didn't answer.
She climbed the steel staircase to the mezzanine slowly, with deliberate rhythm. The guards at the top fired—Anton took one out with a sniper round through the window. The other? She handled personally.
Aurora shoved her pistol into his groin, pulled the trigger once, and let him scream before finishing him with a shot under the jaw.
Romero was crouched behind a desk in his office, shaking.
She kicked the door in.
He dropped his gun immediately.
"Aurora, please. I didn't—"
"Save it," she hissed, walking slowly toward him. "You gave them the shipment route. You let them hijack my deal."
"They threatened my family—"
"And now they won't have one."
Her gun was steady.
But she didn't pull the trigger.
Instead, she leaned close, voice low and serpentine.
"You're going to do something for me."
Romero nodded frantically, snot and tears pouring down his face.
"You're going to send Moretti a message."
"What—what kind of message?"
She turned to Valeria and nodded once.
Valeria stabbed Romero in the thigh—twice. Fast. Deep. Aurora crouched beside him as he howled.
"You'll tell him I'm done playing chess," she whispered. "And that war just started."
Then she dragged her blade along his cheek—deep enough to scar. "Tell him I left a signature."
Blood on her gloves. Smoke in the air. Screams behind her.
She stood and walked out of the warehouse like a queen leaving a burning temple.
Behind her, Anton lit the explosives on the weapons cache. They drove off seconds before the fireball lit up the sky.
Aurora didn't look back.
***
Moretti's Reaction...
The flicker of flames danced across the screen in Moretti's office.
The news played on silent loop—grainy drone footage of the warehouse burning, with captions speculating cartel retaliation or a gangland turf war.
He already knew the truth.
It wasn't a war.
It was her.
Moretti stood by the window of his penthouse, shirt half-buttoned, cigar untouched in his fingers. He watched the skyline of the city glimmer against the night like teeth in a predator's mouth. The skyline he once controlled.
Behind him, his assistant, Marco, fidgeted nervously. Tall, sharp-suited, and normally composed—tonight he looked like a man trapped in the eye of a storm.
"She burned it all," Marco said, voice low. "The product. The men. Romero's men barely made it out."
"She let Romero live," Moretti replied, his voice calm—but laced with venom.
Marco hesitated. "Maybe she's sending a message."
Moretti turned then, slow and deliberate. His expression was unreadable, carved from years of war and power. But his eyes were fire. Cold fire.
"She is," he said. "That she's tired of being poked."
Marco nodded.
Moretti walked to his bar, poured two fingers of scotch, didn't offer Marco any.
"You know what I hate most, Marco?" he said.
Marco stayed quiet. He knew it was rhetorical.
"I hate when people think they're unpredictable. Aurora thinks this makes her wild. Dangerous. But it makes her vulnerable. She's not lashing out because of the deal." He took a slow sip, eyes narrowed. "She's lashing out because of that lawyer."
"Kael," Marco supplied, swallowing thickly.
Moretti gave a low chuckle. "The golden boy. The crime crusader who doesn't know the rules of the game. She's protecting him now. Emotion makes even the sharpest blade rust."
Marco shifted. "Should we hit back? Publicly?"
Moretti studied his reflection in the glass, thinking.
"No," he said finally. "We do something worse."
A beat passed.
"We take her leverage. Strip her power from the roots. I want her allies audited. Her safehouses burned. No body count unless necessary. Just pressure."
Marco nodded quickly. "And Kael?"
Moretti turned, the smirk slow and chilling.
"He's bait now," he said. "He doesn't even know it. And she's not smart enough to let him go."
He walked past Marco, heading toward the hall, his scotch untouched now.
"Oh, and Marco?" he said, pausing in the doorway.
"Yes, boss?"
"If Elias so much as breathes near a precinct again, I want his name wiped off the badge wall before sunrise. And if Kael steps out of hiding—don't kill him." A cruel glint sparked in his eye. "Break him."