His innocent wife is a dangerous hacker.-Chapter 533 Just business

Two others, back-to-back, fumbled to raise their weapons, panic flashing across their faces. But their movements were slow, sloppy, dulled by alcohol. Their swings were clumsy, uncoordinated.

They didn’t stand a chance.

Hands grabbed them from behind. One was slammed face-first into the ground, teeth clicking hard enough to draw blood. The other was driven down onto his knees, a forearm locking across his throat until his weapon fell from numb fingers.

Someone kicked it away.

One man tried to run.

He made it three steps before crashing down, tackled from the side, his head bouncing against the dirt. He didn’t get back up.

In seconds, the laughter was gone.

Bottles rolled across the ground.

Weapons lay scattered, kicked out of reach.

Bodies were pinned, arms twisted behind backs, knees forced into spines. The men groaned, cursed, tried to fight, but their strength was gone, replaced by fear and pain.

The field was silent again.

Bella’s hands trembled slightly as she stared at the screen, her heartbeat hammering so loud she was sure Alessandro could hear it through the earpiece.

Then his voice came through, calm, steady, terrifyingly composed.

"Perimeter is secure," Alessandro said. "The field is ours."

Bella swallowed slowly, her throat bone-dry, and released a quiet, unsteady breath.

Relief and fear churned together in her chest, a sickening mix. Everything felt distant, muted, as if her mind had floated a few inches behind her eyes. She did not remember the walk, only the sense of following Alessandro through a series of unmarked doors and dim, concrete corridors until the air grew cold and still. They were standing in what looked like an industrial basement, raw and windowless.

The air smelled of damp cement, rust, and something sharper, copper maybe, or metallic.

Her eyes adjusted slowly to the low light.

Then she saw them. All eight of the captured men were there, forced to their knees in a rough line, hands bound tightly behind their backs. The drunken arrogance from the satellite feed was gone. Their faces were bruised, mouths bloodied, eyes wide and flickering with panic. They were shaking. Not from the cold, but from the man standing silently before them.

Alessandro.

He stood perfectly still, watching them the way a hawk watches the grass, patient, certain, already seeing the kill.

Her gaze traveled down the line, and then it stopped.

There, on the left hand of the third man from the left, a coiling dragon tattoo.

Her stomach turned to stone.

Alessandro stepped forward. The sound of his shoes on the concrete was the only noise in the room.

"Tell me," he said, his voice low, calm, and far more terrifying than any shout. "Who is Pablo working with now?"

He moved without hurry. He stopped in front of the first man, cupped the man’s chin with a gloved hand, and tilted his face upward. The pistol in his other hand hung loose, casual, as if it were a set of keys.

"W-we don’t know names," the man stammered, tears cutting through the dirt on his face. "We just do what we’re told, I swear."

"Lie."

The word was flat. Final.

Alessandro raised the pistol, pressed the barrel to the man’s forehead, and fired.

The sound was catastrophic in the enclosed space. A short, sharp blast. Then the wet thud of a body collapsing to the floor.

Bella’s heart hammered against her ribs so hard she felt it in her throat. A cold, electric terror shot down her spine. But her face did not change. She did not flinch. She stood perfectly still, watching. Something inside her had gone quiet, not calm, but numb, as if her mind had sealed off the part that knew how to scream.

"Bella."

Alessandro’s voice pulled her back. He had turned to look at her, studying her face with detached curiosity. He saw no panic. No fear.

A small, almost invisible nod. Approval. Satisfaction.

"Yes?" Bella said, her own voice startlingly quiet in the ringing silence. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

He gestured for her to come closer.

She walked forward slowly, her steps measured. She kept her eyes fixed on him, carefully avoiding the shape on the floor. The air now smelled of gunpowder and something sweet and metallic.

When she was beside him, he spoke calmly, as if discussing the weather.

"Can you make them tell the truth?"

He wasn’t testing her cruelty. He was testing her limit. He had seen her mind work. He had seen her will. Now he needed to see her hands.

Bella blinked, her eyes shifting to his. "Me?" she asked softly, the tablet still pressed like a shield to her chest.

He nodded once.

"Don’t you want revenge?" he asked, just above a whisper, and pointed toward the man with the dragon tattoo.

The man flinched as if struck, a violent tremor running through his shoulders.

Bella’s vision blurred for a second, replaced by another image. Leo’s back, split open with stitches. The dark, swollen bruising. The stillness of his body in that white bed. The silence where his voice should have been.

Her jaw tightened. She nodded slowly. "Yes."

She handed the tablet to Alessandro without looking away from the line of kneeling men.

Then she stepped forward.

Closer.

She studied each of them, one by one, her gaze cold and clear.

Bella walked down the line of kneeling men. Her steps were quiet, her face pale but composed. She stopped in front of the man with the dragon tattoo. His eyes, already wide with animal fear, darted from her to Alessandro and back again, searching for mercy.

Bella crouched down, bringing herself to his eye level. She didn’t touch him. She just looked at him.

"What’s your name?" she asked. Her voice was soft. It was the same tone she might use to ask a stranger for directions.

The man stared, his breath hitching. He had braced for a blow, for a scream, for a threat. He had not braced for gentleness. It confused him, and confusion was a crack in his armor.

"G...Gio," he stammered.

"Gio," she repeated, as if tasting the name. She didn’t smile. Her eyes, deep and liquid brown, held his. They were not cruel eyes. They were sorrowful. "You hurt someone I love very much."

Gio shook his head, a frantic, jerky motion. "It wasn’t. It wasn’t personal. It was orders. Just business."