I was awakened by a loud noise.
My head throbbed as I slowly pulled myself together.
I blinked several times, trying to adjust to the dim light around me.
Then I realized where I was.
A prison cell.
I immediately looked around, searching for my team, but there was no sign of them.
My hands trembled as I pushed myself off the cold concrete floor.
The chill seeped through my clothes, making my entire body shake.
There were several other cells surrounding mine.
I wasn’t alone.
A woman sat in the corner of my cell, her arms wrapped around herself as she shivered in fear.
Across from us were several men.
Some were locked behind steel bars, while others sat silently, their bodies covered in bruises.
Then I heard it.
A woman’s scream echoed through the dungeon.
I froze.
Another scream followed, then a muffled cry.
My fists clenched.
Someone was being tortured.
“What’s this place?” I asked the woman beside me.
She covered her ears, squeezing her eyes shut.
“I-Its the underground dungeon… owned by the devil,” she whispered.
Her voice was so faint that I almost didn’t hear her.
The others looked at me.
Their stares were empty, frightened, and strangely silent.
A woman from the neighboring cell moved closer to the bars.
She looked like she was in her twenties, around my age.
“Those screams…” she said hesitantly.
“They might be from one of your comrades. They brought someone here earlier.”
My chest tightened.
“What?” My breathing became uneven.
I grabbed my hair, trying to keep myself from panicking.
My team.
I rushed toward the steel bars and grabbed them.
“HEY! SOMEONE!”
My voice echoed through the dungeon.
“RELEASE US!” Nobody answered.
I shook the bars harder.
“WHERE ARE MY FRIENDS?!”
“Miss!” One of the men shouted from another cell.
“No one can hear you!” I turned toward him.
He was shirtless, bruises covering his torso.
His breathing was heavy, but his eyes remained alert.
“Stop shouting before they come back!”
“I don’t care!” I desperately searched my pockets for my phone.
Nothing.
My tracking device was gone too.
Then I touched my wrist.
The bracelet it was also gone.
My emergency GPS was gone.
Panic began creeping through my chest.
Without the tracker, nobody outside would know where we were.
I was about to lose my mind when I felt something against my back.
I froze.
Theres something behind my back.
Slowly, I reached behind me and felt along the lace of my garment.
Something was clipped there.
I pulled it free.
An earpiece.
My heart jumped.
Maybe Kenneth had managed to hide it on me before we were captured.
I glanced toward the guards.
None of them were looking.
I took the chance and quickly hid behind the woman beside me and slipped the earpiece into my ear.
“Hello?” I waited.
Nothing answered.
“Kenneth?”
Silence creep and worries eloped to my spine.
I adjusted the earpiece.
“Can anyone hear me?” A faint clicking sound suddenly pierced my ear.
My breath caught.
Then a voice came through.
“So, you still tried to hide a secret earpiece?” My blood ran cold.
I immediately pulled it from my ear and dropped it onto the floor.
The line wasn’t connected to our superior, it was from the guys who captured us.
Damn it.
Then I stepped on it.
The cracking sound made the other inmate looked at me.
The tiny device broke beneath my shoe.
I looked toward the corridor.
“Release us!” My voice echoed through the dungeon.
Desperate to catch the guys attention.
The prisoners stared at me as if I’d lost my mind.
“Miss, are you crazy?” one of them whispered.
“Do you really want to die?”
I ignored him.
I grabbed a loose piece of rock from the floor and slammed it against the steel bars.
CLANG!
The sound of it echoed all across the cell rooms.
The noise echoed throughout the dungeon.
Again and again and again.
CLANG!
“COME OUT!” Footsteps suddenly approached.
Everyone went silent.
A tall man appeared from the shadows.
He wore a perfectly fitted suit and tie, his shoes polished despite the filthy dungeon around him.
The entire room fell silent the moment he appeared.
Nobody moved, nobody spoke and nobody flinch.
Her aura defines power by the eay he spoke and command.
He stopped in front of my cell.
A faint smirk appeared on his face.
“You’re brave to made an annoying sound. Get her!” His low, baritone voice echoed through the room.
His slicked-back hair and sharp features made him look more like a businessman than someone who owned an underground dungeon.
I fought back and stopped midway.
When he pulled out a gun and aimed it directly at me.
Instead of backing away, I chuckled.
“If you want to kill me,” I said, staring straight at the barrel, “why use a gun to protect your ego?”
His eyebrow lifted.
“Why not use your own sinful hands?”
The prisoners immediately started shouting.
Some cheered amusement ignite that the lonely and quiet cell started to made some noice.
Others looked at me with pure horror.
The man’s smile widened.
“Interesting.” He lowered the gun slightly.
“Sure, babe. If that’s what you want, then that’s what you’ll get.” He motioned to the guard.
“Open it.” The cell door unlocked.
It’s creeping sound echoed as the door swung open.
I stepped outside.
The man removed his coat and handed it to one of the associate.
The surrounding men gathered near their cells, shouting and cheering.
“Fight!”
“Get him!”
Others remained silent, clearly worried about what was about to happen.
The man rolled his shoulders.
Then he pointed toward me.
“Start.”
I didn’t hesitate.
A decade of hard training had taught me how to fight when fear was trying to take control.
I clenched my fists.
“You’ll regret letting me out.”
He laughed.
That was his mistake.
The moment his attention shifted, I lunged.
My foot slammed into his stomach.
He staggered backward.
I immediately pulled my jacket over his face, blocking his vision, and tried to take advantage of the opening.
But he recovered quickly.
His arm wrapped around me.
Before I could react, he threw me toward the wall.
The hitting sound of my back being slammed against the concrete.
Pain shot through me.
I gritted my teeth.
And as he rushed toward me I recovered and moved just in time.
His fist missed my face by inches and struck the wall instead.
I ducked under his next swing and drove my elbow into his side.
Until he stumbled against the cold floor.
I followed with another strike.
He managed to blocked it.
Then another.
He caught my wrist and tried to twist my arm behind me.
I twisted with him instead, breaking his grip.
He swung again.
I ducked.
His fist passed over my head.
I drove my knee forward and forced him backward.
The prisoners erupted.
“COME ON!”
“GET HIM!”
“ZUYAN!”
He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and stared at me.
The amusement in his eyes was gone.
Now he was angry.
And I just gave him a soft chuckle and he charged.
“Remember what I said?” I said that made him even more angrier.
I stepped aside.
He nearly lost his balance.
I grabbed his arm and used his momentum to send him crashing onto the floor.
He immediately pushed himself back up.
He was breathing and gasping for some air now.
So was I.
Neither of us wanted to stop.
He threw a punch.
And I blocked it just in time now he threw a kick and I moved away.
Another punch.
I ducked over and saw a chance to spun and delivered a high kick towards him.
The impact sent him crashing onto the concrete.
Silence.
For one second, nobody moved.
Then the entire dungeon exploded with cheers.
I stood there, gasping for air.
My body ached, but I didn’t care.
Amusement painted at there faces.
Until my eyes landed on the people being dragged into the dungeon.
Kenneth and Carter had bruises into their faces and was being dragged in chains in there arms and behind them was Andrea and Chalia with some clothes being tucked inside their mouths.
They felt exhausted and were being pulled forward in chains.
“Guys…” My voice cracked.
Worried etched into my face but still grateful that they are alive.
I took a step toward them.
Then a man wearing a formal suit and gloves stepped forward.
It wasn’t the man I had just beaten.
He looked down at the man, who was still struggling to get back on his feet.
“Well, you’ve still got some skill, huh?”
He shook his head in dismay.
“Hey, Zuyan. Are you getting weak these days? You just got beaten by a woman.”
Zuyan glared at him.
I turned toward the man in front of me.
“Who are you?” I asked
He smiled.
“Me?”
He tilted his head.
“You really don’t know who I am?”
I glanced at Kenneth.
He was shaking his head.
Telling me to stop but I didn’t listen.
The stranger continued.
“Wow. So you’re Agent Beltran.”
My expression changed the way he spelled my full name.
“The successor of the legendary government private agent, Sienna Beltran.”
He paused.
“The sniper.”
My jaw tightened.
How could he knew my mom?
“Too bad she died six years ago.” Everything inside me went still.
My expression hardened and I didn’t notice that I started walking toward him.
One step after another.
My fists tightened and my jaw clenched, I won’t let anyone mention my mother’s name.
Especially her disrespectful death.
But before I could reach him, he grabbed Chalia by the hair and pulled her forward.
He pressed a gun against her head.
I stopped and anger erupted inside me when he spoke again.
“Do you want a live show of what happened six years ago?”
My breathing became heavier.
Chalia’s eyes met mine.
She didn’t flinch and went silent as she was looking to me and her eyes says everything.
I forced myself to calm down.
“What do you know?”
My eyes never left his.
If staring could kill a person, I said to my mind.
you’d already be dead by now.
His smile disappeared.
“Maybe I should ask you that.”
His voice dropped.
“WHAT. DO. YOU. KNOW?”
He shoved Chalia aside.
Then he walked toward me.
He stopped only inches away.
He’s towering over me, his expression cold and unreadable.
“Let’s be frank, Agent.”
He leaned closer.
“Are you here after the Ciffarellian Mafia…”
His eyes narrowed.
“…or are you here to start a bloody war?”
I grabbed his tie and pulled him down until our faces were level.
Then I whispered near his ear.
“What if…” I paused and looked at his piercing eyes.
“…both?”
He chuckled.
A low, amused sound.
Then he released himself from my grip and gestured toward his men.
“Leave us.”
The guards slowly moved away.
I watched them until they disappeared from earshot.
The man turned back to me.
“Do you know exactly who I am?”
“You’re part of the Ciffarellian Mafia—” I uttered but only to be disappointed.
He burst out laughing.
I frowned.
His laughter only made my irritation grow.
I glanced at Andrea and she was staring at me, her arms crossed.
That’s when I realized.
Something wasn’t right.
The man wiped the amusement from his face.
“You’re pointing your gun at the wrong enemy.” He stepped closer.
“Let me introduce myself.” His eyes hardened.
“This place belongs to the Infernos Mafia.”
My expression changed.
“I and the Ciffarellis have been enemies for a long time.”
I stared at him.
Then one question immediately came to mind.
“Then why?”
He smiled.
“Exactly.”
His voice became colder.
“That’s the right question.”
He gestured toward the prisoners.
“We’re targeting the same people.” He paused.
“You want them dead.”
His eyes narrowed.
“And I want their title.”
It wasn’t an alliance.
It was an arrangement.
All over this years a Mafia would never trust an outsiders especially when they come from the government.
He wanted us to eliminate his enemies.
And in return, he would use his people to help us.
I looked toward my team.
Kenneth was exhausted.
Carter looked tense.
Andrea’s face was pale.
And Chalia was still recovering from being dragged around in chains.
They were tired.
They were scared.
And they were depending on me.
The man stepped closer.
“What’s the deal?” I asked.
“We’ll be your backup agency for now.” He said and extended his hand.
“But if you fail to do what we say…” His expression darkened.
“…you and your friends will end the same way your mother did.” A suppressed chuckle escaped him.
My stomach twisted.
Too many emotions crashed through me at once.
Anger build into my system, fear if losing the ones I cared for when the contract don’t go well and doubt of not being able to complete the mission.
But I couldn’t let any of them control me.
I couldn’t be selfish.
Not when my team was standing behind me.
If this was the only way to get them out alive and finish our mission, then I’d take it.
I took a deep breath.
Then I extended my hand.
“Call.”
Everyone’s eyes landed on me.
The man looked at my hand.
Then he took it and had a firm grip.
“Deal.” He announced.
See y’all at the next chapter!!!