Chapter 5

"Just so you know, if this doesn't work out, I will-"

"You will kill me and no one would ever know what happened. Got it." I cut him off, rolling my eyes. Luciano glares at me while I can hear Luca and Angelo snicker in our earpieces.

We were currently at the warehouse, waiting for Connor's men to hit. Luca and Angelo were on the roof, sniper rifles in their arms. Luciano and I were in one of the rooms at the back of the warehouse. Now, you're probably wondering where's the rest of his men?Well, they weren't here. Luciano's men had unloaded the crates in the warehouse, locking them in the vault with Luca supervising them. It was like any other shipment for Connor's men who were more than likely watching. What they didn't know is that those crates were empty. The weapons had arrived a day earlier and were safe and secure in another warehouse. I knew that Liam was going to hack into the warehouse's security system and disable all the silent alarms and motion sensors, allowing the men to enter without alerting the Italians. The crazy part of my plan was we were gonna let them in. I wasn't going to block Liam out. When Connor's men had entered, I would take control of the system again and shut the lights, locking them in the warehouse as well. The men standing guard outside the warehouse would be taken care of by Luca and Angelo. Luciano and I would take care of the ones inside the warehouse. We were hoping to take a few them in alive to get information out of them but I knew that was a long shot. The reason we didn't bring any of Luciano's men with us was because we didn't want to risk tipping of whoever was watching the warehouse. There was a back entrance that we could sneak in and a place to hide the car but having more than one vehicle would tip them off. So, for tonight, we were the army. My only hope was that Connor wouldn't send so many of his men since it was just to retrieve the weapons.

"Don, we have movement on the east side of the warehouse. 6 SUV's heading our way." Angelo says in the earpiece.

"That's more than we were expecting." Luca pipes in. It was true, we were hoping for 3 or 4 cars but we could still handle 6.

My eyes are glued to the tablet in my hand, waiting for Liam to break into our system. Instantly, the code starts getting scrambled and I smirk.

"Liam's hacking into the system as we speak." The reason I was allowing Liam to break in was because I had hidden a virus in the security system. When Liam logs in, the program I had written would act as a keylogger in his system, allowing me to view everything he had or was searching for. It would only buy us a few days at the most before Liam realised but at this point, we had to take what we could get.

"We've got eyes on 25 men. 5 of them are staying guard outside. The others seem to be waiting for Liam to give them green light." Luca says.

"Liam just disarmed the security. They should be entering right about now." I say and Angelo confirms. 20 men have just entered the warehouse. My program immediately starts working its way into Liam's server but that's not my main concern right now. I access the security cameras, Luciano and I watching the men head towards the vault. They wait again, probably for Liam to hack into the vault's security.

I nod at Luciano, indicating that I'm ready. He nods back, speaking into his earpiece.

"One..two..three." I take control of the system again, shutting Liam out. Immediately, I shut the lights off and lock the warehouse doors, trapping the men in and keeping the men out. I can hear Luca and Angelo silently take down the men standing guard outside the warehouse while Luciano and I prepare to take down the 20 men inside. Luciano and I had 2 weapons and ammo strapped to the belt around us, a Glock and a Beretta. In our hands were our semi-automatics.

I'll be honest with you, I was nervous. Not because we were about to face 20 men, nope that was the easy part. I was nervous because this was my first time on the field with Luciano. I couldn't exactly trust the guy yet, as much as I wanted to. That idiot, perceptive as always, somehow figured out where my thoughts were. Turning to me, he says seriously,

"Alessandra, do you trust me?" I search his eyes for any signs of dishonesty, any sign that he didn't have my back but all I could see was determination and trust. I nod my head and for a moment, his eyes soften before they turn hard again.We quietly leave the room and sneak up behind the men. They are not paying much attention to their surroundings, everyone in confusion over the lights suddenly going out. I turn the lights back on and they seem to be relieved before realising that they had company. Turning around, they stare at us in shock.

"I don't suppose you're gonna come with us quietly are you?" I say and when they immediately raise the weapons, ready to fire, I have my answer.

"Guess not."Luciano mutters beside me and then, it rained bullets. Luciano was taking care of the left side while I was taking care of the right, our shooting almost in sync. When I ran out, I pulled back to reload and Luciano took out his second gun instantly to cover me. When I was done, we switched with Luciano tossing me his second gun, While he reloaded, I took over. We hadn't really discussed this, and it surprised me how in sync we were with each other . We didn't need to grab each other's attention to switch guns and I didn't need to tell him to cover me. We were almost at the end of the hallway when we both ran out of ammo. The two guys in front of us smirked when they realised but before they could even shoot at us, I did a high roundhouse kick, kicking the gun away from one guy while Luciano punched the other, causing him to drop his weapon. Everything was a blur as I fought with him, not even paying attention to what Luciano was doing. Soon, however, I was staring at a hallway full of dead men. Looking over, I found Luciano looking back at me, the both of breathless and slightly bruised.

"You okay?"he asks me, his eyes scanning my body for injuries. His actions send shivers down my spine, causing me to mentally frown. All he did was check if I was injured. I snap out of it and nod, my eyes instantly scanning his body for injuries as well. He nods and smirks at the sight in front of us.

"I don't think Connor is going to be too happy about this." I chuckle, imagining Connor flipping out when he finds out that not only had he failed to steal the weapons, he had lost 20 of his men.

"Don, Alessa, are you guys good?" Angelo's voice sounds in our ears and we let them know that we're good.

I unlock the doors and disarm the warehouse, allowing the boys to come in. They look around and let out a low whistle.

"Holy shit, I definitely need to watch the footage of this."Angelo says,causing Luca to roll his eyes and hit him on his head. Angelo scowls and the two start bickering until Luciano clears his throat, his eyes sending a clear warning. I smother a laugh at the boys expressions as they immediately straighten up and mutter a 'sorry don'.

"Get the rest of the men and clear this up. We'll meet you back at the house."He instructs and my brain registers the 'We' a little too late.

"Wait, we?" I look at him and he nods, "Yeah, you're following me back to the house."

"But, I can help the boys get rid of-"

"You're following me back to the house, Alessandra." Luciano says in a firm voice and I feel my anger rising. Before I could say anything , his eyes soften and he continues, this time in a sifter voice,"You're bleeding, dolchezza. We need to get you cleaned up."

Only then do I realise that there's a wound on my arm, probably from a knife and my lips are stinging.

"We got this Alessa. We'll meet you back at the house." Luca says and Angelo interjects with a "Yeah, you kinda look like shit." to which I glare icily at him and he quickly adds a 'No offence".

Sighing, I relent and follow Luciano out to his car,nodding at the men who are entering the warehouse to clean it up.

The drive home is silent but its a comfortable silence. We pull up at the mansion and head in. I'm about to head towards my room to clean myself up when Luciano gently steers me towards his office. I open my mouth to argue but he stuns me by placing a finger on my lips.

"Do you always have to argue with me, cara?" he says with an amused smirk.

I huff in frustration as he sits me down on his sofa. He heads to one of the cupboards and pulls out a first aid kit, a bottle of whiskey and 2 glasses. Placing them on the coffeetable in front of me, he sits on the table and pours us whiskey. Handing me a glass, we clink our glasses and take a sip. I savor the sip of the alcohol, enjoying the slight burn as it flows down my throat. We just sit in silence, lost in our own thoughts and enjoying the alcohol when he breaks the silence.

"Come on, let's take a look at your arm."

The wound isn't too deep and doesn't require stitches thankfully. Once he's done cleaning my wounds and bandaging them, he starts to close the kit, making me furrow my brows in confusion.

"What are you doing?"

He raises his eyes to me before looking back at the kit, putting everything back in.

"Putting the kit away. Did you hit your head or something?"

I roll my eyes,"What about your wounds?"

He shrugs me off,"They're fine."

I gently pull his arm away from the kit, grabbing it and placing it on the sofa beside me.

Taking the disinfectant out, I grab some cotton before gently angling his arm towards me.

"You need to clean your wounds or else they're gonna get infected." I say softly, focused on cleaning and bandaging his wounds. I only realise the intensity of his stare when I'm done. Looking at him in surprise, I let out a "What's wrong?" Luciano doesn't say a word but continues to stare at me, a million different emotions on his face. Before I can ask him again, the door opens and Luca and Angelo walk in.

Luciano instantly pulls away from me, grabbing the first aid kit and walking towards the cupboard.I stare at his back in confusion before my attention gets diverted towards Luca who has grabbed another 2 glasses and is pouring more whiskey for all of us.

"I need to see it." angelo says beside me like an excited kid. I turn to him in confusion,"What?"

He rolls his eyes at me, frustrated with my slowness.

"The footage, Alessa. I wanna see you and Luciano kick ass."

Luciano groans as his child like excitement while I chuckle at his words. Grabbing my laptop, I access the security footage from the warehouse and play it. I have to admit, watching it shocked the hell out of me. Luciano and I worked seamlessly together, as if we had been partners for years and done this a million times. The chemistry or rather teamwork between us was flawless as we took down Connor's men like flies.

"HOLY FUCK!!" I jump as Angelo lets out a huge yell when we finish watching the footage. Even Luca looks shocked.

"Jesus Christ, that was amazing. You guys were like fire. You didn't even look at him when he tosses you his gun and you cover him..I mean...like..what the hell.."Angelo exclaims in shock while Luca nods.

"That was seriously amazing guys. The three of us are like that but it took years of practice and familiarising. This was your first time as a team. Honestly, that was just..wow."

I don't really know what to say because I'm pretty lost for words as well. I sneak a peek over at Luciano, forcing myself not to blush when I find him already looking at me.

He smiles softly at me, catching me off guard since Luciano never smiles. Raising his glass at me, he says"Looks like we make a great team,dolchezza."