Hidden Tracks | ✓

43 | strike to kill

"Che cazzo fai?!"

Ianucci was screaming at the onslaught of TIA agents barging in through the door. His face was purple with shock and rage, his narrow eyes almost turning to slits with anger.

One of the agents promptly caught him and before he could raise a finger in protest, the agent had his hands pinned behind his back.

"You are under arrest for possession and distribution of illegal drugs, and for intentionally hiding fugitives in your care, Mr Ianucci," an Italian policeman spoke as he stood before the struggling druglord.

Yes. Mason Caldwell and Amélie Beaumont had officially been labelled fugitives now, thanks to all their illegal drug activities we'd uncovered, and the fact that they had knowingly escaped from witness protection.

Speaking of the two--

"Shit! Caldwell and Beaumont are gone!"

I cursed under my breath as I turned around to where they'd been standing. When Miranda had first entered with her team, Soler and I had rushed over to stop some of Ianucci's men, who had come running after hearing the commotion. These lackeys were big-built and carrying guns, so they had to be stopped first. But in all this chaos, Mason and Amélie had managed to take off.

Ianucci's men were currently on the ground, stripped of their guns and with some of them carrying bullets in their limbs. Soler and a couple other TIA guys had made sure of that. Thankfully, no one from our team had been seriously injured yet. Only one guy had been shot in the arm and it was just a graze.

But our biggest worry, Mason and Amélie, hadn't been captured yet.

I turned around and sprinted up the winding stairs. I looked down for a moment and shouted, "Soler! Take the corridor to your left, see if Mason or Amélie has gone that way!"

He nodded and took off. I had no time to glance back at him as I took the stairs two at a time and reached the next floor.

There was a hallway ahead of me, with several doors on either sides. At the end of the hallway, there was a balcony. To my left was another set of stairs.

I started walking down the hallway, treading stealthily so my footsteps couldn't be heard. I cocked my gun and held it ready, as I reached for my left pocket and felt the taser nestled there, ready to be used.

There wasn't a sound to be heard. It seemed like no one was here, although I was pretty sure this part of the house was lived in. I mean, Ianucci might not have a family here (his only son lived in Germany and his wife had died two years ago) but he had tons of right hand men, maids and other staff who needed rooms to live.

So where were they? Were they all hiding somewhere else?

I strained my ears for any kind of sound which might give away the fact that someone was here, but all I could hear was eerie silence. The afternoon light streaming in from the balcony cast a greyish golden haze on the walls, and I shuddered despite myself.

I tried to open the doors as I walked past them, but they were all locked. I sighed, growing more and more frustrated by the second.

I could hear faint cries coming from the living room, probably from Ianucci, but this part of the house was painfully quiet. I needed to know what was going on, if anyone was actually hiding--

A sudden, heavy jolt knocked me out of my thoughts as I fell on my side, hard. Someone had pushed their entire body weight on me, and despite all my alertness, they'd successfully managed to take me off guard.

I hit the ground with an oof, and to my absolute horror, the gun slipped out of my grasp in the momentum of the fall. It clattered to the floor and slid across to the end of the hallway.