When Shadows Knock

"How many are coming?"

Ariella's voice sliced through the thick, suffocating air.

Kael didn't look at her.

His eyes stayed fixed on the window, tracking the distant, steady growl of engines approaching through the Tuscan hills.

He could already feel the ground vibrating beneath them, subtle but relentless.

"Enough to bury us," he muttered, checking the magazine of his pistol with a swift, practiced motion.

He wasn't exaggerating.

Ariella's hands tightened around her weapon, her fingers pale from the force of her grip.

Her face remained still, but Kael knew her too well.

He could see the tremor in her breath, the tiny shiver that ran through her every time a new engine roared closer.

"We should've run earlier," she said, her voice low, almost as if she was admitting defeat.

Kael's lips curled into the faintest hint of a bitter smile.

"Running wouldn't have mattered. They would've followed. They're not street thugs. They're hunters."

He turned to her then, his gaze sharp and unwavering.

"And this house isn't just stone and wood. It's a trap. Our trap."

Ariella blinked, caught off guard by his certainty.

Kael moved with the calm of a man who'd done this too many times.

He grabbed a worn duffel bag from under the floorboards, revealing a hidden cache of weapons, ammunition, and smoke grenades.

"I spent the last two nights setting up the perimeter," he explained as he handed her a loaded handgun and a knife.

"Tripwires. Pressure mines. Reinforced doors. They're not walking in here without losing something first."

She stared at him, stunned by the cold efficiency.

"You planned this."

"I plan for everything," he said simply.

For a brief moment, silence fell again, thick with unsaid words.

Kael's hands moved fast but steady, checking every round, every blade, every wire.

"You don't have to fight," he said, his tone quieter now.

"If you want, you can hide in the cellar. I can buy you time."

Ariella's eyes hardened.

The woman who'd once been terrified of her own family now looked like something else entirely.

"I'm not hiding," she said firmly. "Not anymore."

Kael paused, watching her.

Something had shifted in her—an edge, raw and sharp, born from too much pain.

"Then listen closely," he said, leaning in, his voice low and steady.

"When the first trap goes off, we have exactly three minutes before they breach. You take the west side. Shoot to kill. No warnings. No mercy."

She nodded, absorbing every word like scripture.

"And if they break through?" she asked.

Kael's gaze darkened.

"Then we burn the house down with them inside."

---

The engines stopped.

An eerie, unnatural silence followed.

Kael's heartbeat slowed, focused, every sense razor-sharp.

He motioned to Ariella, and they moved like shadows through the house, taking their positions.

Ariella crouched near the back window, her pistol steady in her hands.

Her heart pounded, but her grip no longer trembled.

She watched Kael through the reflection in the glass.

Calm.

Focused.

Deadly.

She envied that composure.

Then, in the quiet, a memory struck her—unbidden, cruel.

Matteo's voice.

"Family means loyalty, Ella. Betrayal isn't forgiven. It's erased."

She swallowed hard, forcing the words away.

Not now.

Outside, footsteps crunched against gravel.

They were here.

Kael's fingers hovered over the detonator.

He counted every step.

One.

Two.

Three.

The first trap triggered.

An explosion rocked the earth, shaking the old farmhouse as screams tore through the air.

Without hesitation, Kael fired the first shot.

The war had begun.

---

The world outside erupted in chaos.

Gunfire cracked through the air, sharp and brutal.

Kael moved with lethal precision, firing at shadows that darted through the smoke and fire.

Bodies fell.

Screams rang out.

But the attackers kept coming.

Ariella held her ground on the west side, her breaths sharp and fast, but her aim steady.

She fired, each shot echoing like thunder in her ears.

She didn't think.

She just pulled the trigger.

Two men dropped near the porch, their weapons clattering uselessly to the ground.

"West side holding!" she shouted toward Kael.

Kael's voice cut through the gunfire.

"Keep shooting! Don't stop until they're all down!"

Outside, the Raven squad regrouped, their leader barking orders in clipped, cold Italian.

"Sweep left! Breach window!"

Kael heard it.

He anticipated it.

He moved fast, slamming a smoke grenade against the door frame before hurling it out the shattered window.

Thick, black smoke swallowed the yard.

"Reload!" he shouted.

Ariella's hands moved on instinct, swapping magazines with surprising speed.

Inside, Kael's mind was cold, calculating.

He wasn't just fighting.

He was hunting.

"They're trying to flank us!" Ariella called.

Kael's eyes narrowed.

"Not if we take them first."

He grabbed a rifle from the duffel bag, slinging it over his shoulder as he darted through the hall.

Every creak of the floorboards, every gust of wind—he heard it all.

They were closing in.

From the corner of the hallway, he saw a shadow creeping near the back entrance.

Kael's finger tightened on the trigger.

One breath.

One shot.

The intruder dropped instantly, his body limp.

"They're inside," Kael said, his voice steady.

Ariella's heart skipped.

This was it.

The breach had begun.

But she didn't freeze.

She moved, calm and precise, just as Kael had taught her.

She positioned herself by the kitchen door, pistol aimed at the entry point.

Kael moved to cover her flank, rifle at the ready.

The house groaned under the weight of violence.

Then, another explosion.

The front door blasted inward, sending shards of wood flying.

Kael fired first.

The Raven soldiers returned fire, the walls shuddering under the hail of bullets.

Glass shattered.

Smoke filled every corner.

Ariella squeezed the trigger.

One enemy down.

Another.

She kept shooting, her ears ringing, her lungs burning.

Kael's voice reached her through the chaos.

"Basement! Move!"

She hesitated.

"Now!"

They retreated under cover fire, slipping through the kitchen and down the hidden stairs Kael had shown her days ago.

The basement was dark, cold, and cramped.

Kael slammed the door behind them, locking it with a metal bar.

"We can't stay here," Ariella gasped.

Kael nodded.

"We're not."

He pulled open a hidden panel in the wall, revealing a narrow tunnel leading into the earth.

"Go," he ordered.

"What about you?"

"I'll catch up. Move!"

Ariella's eyes locked with his for a heartbeat.

Then she turned and crawled into the tunnel.

Kael stayed behind, reloading, every second stretching into eternity.

Above them, footsteps pounded through the house.

The Raven squad was inside.

Kael took one last look at the tunnel.

Then he pulled the pin on the last grenade.

He whispered, more to himself than anyone else.

"If they want a war... they'll get it."

And with that, he threw the grenade, slamming the basement door shut.

The explosion consumed the house.

The screen faded to black.