By the time evening settled over the house, it felt like the building itself had changed its skin.

During the day, the villa pretended to be something softer. Sunlight poured through the tall windows, warming the marble floors and gilded frames, catching dust in the air like floating gold. From a distance, it could almost pass for a wealthy family estate — the kind that hosted brunches and charity galas and old-money weddings. The kitchen smelled of bread and coffee, the maids spoke in low voices, doors opened and closed with polite restraint.

It was almost easy to forget that people were executed here between meals.

But night stripped the lie away.

When the sun disappeared, so did the warmth. Shadows swallowed the corners of the halls. The marble lost its glow and turned cold and sterile, like a hospital. Every sound echoed too far. Every footstep felt suspicious. The house stopped pretending to be a home and remembered what it truly was.

A stronghold.

A cage.

A place where men planned other men's deaths over whiskey.

Camilla sat on the edge of her bed and watched the light drain slowly from the walls, her hands resting loosely in her lap, fingers still, almost relaxed. If someone had looked through the door, they would have seen a quiet girl waiting for dinner, maybe scared, maybe bored.

Katia.

Small. Harmless. Forgettable.

But inside her head, nothing was quiet.

Her thoughts had been racing since the kitchen.

Marseille.
Port.
Shipment.
Half the guards gone.
Damiano leading the operation himself.

The information replayed over and over, rearranging itself into patterns the way puzzle pieces eventually snapped into place if you stared at them long enough.

Cristiano bragging.
Cristiano oversharing.
Cristiano desperate to feel important.

God, he had practically gift-wrapped the intel for her. She almost smiled thinking about it.

Men like him always believed they were hunters.

They never realized they were the easiest prey.

Still, tonight wasn't about Cristiano.

Not yet.

Tonight was about the house.

Because for the first time since she had arrived the house would be vulnerable.

She rose slowly and crossed to the window, pulling the curtain just enough to see outside. The courtyard below was alive with movement. Headlights cut through the dark like knives. Engines idled. Car doors slammed. Men spoke sharply in Italian, voices clipped and urgent, boots scraping against gravel as weapons cases were carried to the trunks.

She counted automatically.

One car.

Two.

Three.

Four.

More at the side entrance.

At least eight men leaving from the front alone. Probably double that across the property.

Rifles.

Radios.

Body armor.

They weren't guarding tonight.

They were hunting.

Her reflection in the window looked different now, darker somehow. The softness she'd worn all day — the wide eyes, the hunched shoulders, the careful helplessness of Katia — was already fading. Her posture had straightened without her noticing. Her gaze had sharpened.

Camilla was surfacing again.

The version of her that didn't wait to be rescued.

The version that planned.

Calculated.

Acted.

Because waiting for Damiano's plan meant trusting Damiano.

And trusting him meant betting six innocent lives on the mercy of a mafia boss.

No.

She didn't trust anyone in this house.

Not him.

Not Cristiano.

Not fate.

If Volkov was going to die, it would be because she arranged it.

Not because someone else happened to succeed.

She slid her hand beneath the mattress and retrieved the small notebook she'd hidden earlier. Sitting back down, she opened it and began writing in tight, precise lines.

Ports.
Times.
Guard rotations.
Names.

Cristiano — insecure, manipulable.
Damiano — obsessive, sleep-deprived, revenge-driven.
Uncle — ambitious.
Cousins — greedy.

Family fractures.

Exploit.

The pen paused against the paper.

If Damiano was at the port tonight... His office would be empty. Less guards inside. Less supervision. Less risk.

Her heart beat once, hard and certain.

There it is.

Not luck. Not desperation.Opportunity.

She closed the notebook slowly.

The decision didn't feel dramatic.

It didn't feel brave.

It just felt logical. Like solving an equation. Tonight, she goes back not to explore but to take something.

Documents. A phone. A drive. Anything she could hide. Anything that wouldn't disappear if she died tomorrow.

Information locked in her head died with her. Information on paper could change everything.

She stood and changed clothes again, choosing the same quiet, practical outfit as the night before. The silk skirt with the slit that let her run if she needed to. The loose blouse that didn't restrict her arms. Bare feet against the floor for silence.

The knife slid back into the strap on her thigh, cool and familiar against her skin.

The only honest thing in this entire house.

The corridor was colder at night.

Not physically colder — the air was the same — but emptier, quieter, like the house had exhaled all its life along with the men who had left for the port. Moonlight spilled through the tall windows in pale strips, stretching across the marble floors and turning everything silver and ghostly. Every step Camilla took echoed just a little too much, so she adjusted, placing her feet carefully on the edges of the tiles where the sound died faster. Slow. Measured. Patient.

From outside came the distant hum of engines and the occasional murmur of Italian voices, fading further and further away. Inside, nothing.

The fortress was hollow.

And hollow fortresses were easier to break.

She moved down the stairs with one hand resting near her thigh, fingers brushing the hidden knife out of habit. Not because she wanted a fight — fights were messy and loud and stupid — but because the weight of the blade reminded her who she really was.

Not Katia.

Damiano's office door looked exactly the same as before. Heavy wood. Brass handle. Imposing in a quiet, old-money kind of way. It was almost ridiculous how ordinary it looked, considering how many lives were decided inside that room.

She paused outside it and listened.

Nothing.

No voices. No movement.

Empty.

Her fingers pressed down on the handle slowly, carefully controlling the click of the latch, and she slipped inside like smoke.

The air smelled of leather, whiskey, tobacco, and old paper — the scent of men who made violent decisions while pretending they were business ones. Moonlight cut across the desk, catching the edge of a glass and a stack of folders left slightly askew, like Damiano had left in a hurry.

For a second, she simply stood there, letting her eyes adjust, taking the room in.

Her original plan had been simple: steal something. A phone. A drive. Documents. Proof she had been here. Proof that if she died, someone could still use what she found.

But as she stepped closer to the desk, another idea formed.

Something smarter.

Something meaner.

Taking something only helped her.

But breaking something would hurt them.

And hurting them bought time.

Family above all.

That was their rule. Their pride. Their religion. They trusted blood more than logic.

Loyalty more than evidence.

Which meant if she could make them doubt each other... even a little... this whole house would start tearing itself apart without her lifting a weapon.

They wouldn't focus on her. They wouldn't focus on the hostages. They'd focus on finding the traitor among them.

Paranoia was stronger than fear.

Paranoia destroyed families.

A small, sharp smile tugged at her lips. She didn't need to steal. She needed to poison.

She opened the first drawer of the desk.

Two burner phones.

She slipped one into her blouse — insurance, always — but instead of taking the second, she swapped their positions and left the drawer slightly out of order. Subtle. Like someone had searched through it quickly.

Not obvious.

Just wrong enough.

The kind of wrong Damiano would notice immediately. The next drawer held files.

Personnel lists. Payment logs. Internal reports. Not enemies.

Family.

She flipped through them quickly, memorizing as she went, then began sliding pages around. A suspicious transfer from one folder into another. A signature sheet misplaced. A payment receipt tucked where it didn't belong.

Nothing dramatic.

Nothing fake.

Just messy.

Just inconsistent.

The kind of thing that made a meticulous man think, Someone touched this.

And once that thought appeared, it would never leave.

She moved to the shelves next, fingers brushing over labeled USB drives and ledgers. She pocketed one at random, then deliberately placed another into the wrong case. If someone checked, it would look like data had been copied.

Like someone inside the house had taken something. Like a leak. Let them suspect each other. Let them argue. Let them stop trusting the word "family."

When she stepped back, the office looked almost untouched.

Almost.

But the order was broken.

And for someone like Damiano, order was everything.

By morning, he wouldn't be thinking about Volkov.

He'd be wondering who had betrayed him.

A car engine roared somewhere outside.

Closer than before.

She waited a full minute before moving again. Always wait. Always assume someone might come back.

When she finally slipped out of the office and into the corridor, the house felt different.

Not empty anymore.

Fragile.

Like glass with cracks spreading beneath the surface.

Because tonight she hadn't just gathered intel.

She had planted doubt.

And doubt was far more dangerous than bullets. As she padded silently back upstairs, one thought settled firmly in her mind.

If she couldn't escape this family—

she would make the family destroy itself.