I was afraid to fall asleep in case I had another nightmare, so after Enzo left my room, I spent the night reading a book, and somewhere along the way of reading the pages I fell asleep, and luckily I didn't dream anything bad.
The next day, I woke up feeling exhausted, but I still got up from my bed and went to the bathroom to take a shower and get ready for the day.
I dried myself with a towel after getting out of the shower, and then I put on a robe.
I was in the middle of brushing my teeth when I heard my phone ringing. I walk into the bedroom and grabbed my phone, I answered it after checking the caller ID.
"Hello?" I mumbled, though it sounded like a hum due to the fact that I was still brushing my teeth.
"Are you brushing your teeth?" Max chuckles on the other line.
I walk into the bathroom and put Max on speaker. Then, I placed my phone on the table beside the sink, I spit the foam and answered him, "I am. How did the meeting went yesterday?"
"Surprisingly, it went well." He answers my question, although I notice something odd in his tone of voice.
"All of them agreed to the contract?" I ask him as I finish brushing my teeth.
"One of them refused." Max says on the other line.
"Who did?" I ask curiously as I grab a towel to wipe my face.
"Matteo Capone."
I pause for a second when I hear that name.
"Of course it will be him." I sigh.
"He also said that he would like a meeting with you personally, if you really want him as an ally." Max delivers his message.
I laugh at that, "I made a promise to never see him again, and I plan on keeping it that way." I grab the phone and head to the closet to choose my outfit of today. "So, tell him that I will not have a meeting with him and that if he doesn't want to sign the contract with us, then it's his loss, not mine." I order Max.
"I would really hate to have you as an enemy, Lea." He says on the other line and I chuckle at that, "Lucky you, then."
"I will make sure to deliver your message to him." Max says and I just hum in acknowledgment.
"Are you flying back home today?" I change the topic.
"Yeah, in an hour to be exact." He answers, "Okay, I hope you have a safe flight and let me know when you land." I say.
"I will. Be careful today, Lea." He says concerned. "You know I will." I answered him with confidence. After that, we hung up the call and I continued getting ready for the day.
Once I was done, I went downstairs to find Enzo so we could leave. To my surprise, Enzo was entering the front door with a paper bag in his hand.
He smiles when he sees me and greets me with a "Good morning, Ms. Cattani."
"Didn't we agree that you can call me 'Lea' from now on?" I pose the question to him with a lighthearted tone in my voice.
"I still need to get use to that." He chuckles.
With the weeks that I've spent with Enzo, I've noticed that he is well-mannered with everyone around him. At first glance, he looks intimidating, but once you get to know him, he is the complete opposite.
"What is that?" I ask him, instead. I was curious about the bag that he was holding.
"I brought this for you." He hands me the paper bag, I take it from his hands with a frown and I look inside.
"You brought me breakfast?" I was taken a back for a moment and my heart felt warm from the gesture, this is the first time in a long time that someone took care of me like this.
"Yeah, yesterday you didn't eat lunch or dinner. And today is an important day, you need to eat so you can have energy and not faint on me in the middle of the day." He explains his kind gesture with humor added to it.
"Thank you." I give him a small smile and we both head to the empty kitchen.
"Has everyone eaten breakfast?" I ask him as I took out the containers from the bag to start eating.
"Yes, ma'am." He nod his head.
"What about you?" I ask nonchalant, covering my mouth while I ate.
"I ate a while ago." He responds.
"Okay, is everything ready?" I ask him with a serious face.
"We just need your approval on the strategy." He says.
"Show it to me." I nod my head at him.
Enzo heads out of the kitchen to get the iPad that has the strategy of the plan for today's mission. A few minutes later, he enters the room with it.
"Here it is." He hands me the iPad, I take it and I start inspecting the type of strategy that Damiano prepared.
"It seems good. We can proceed with the plan." I say once I have reviewed everything of the strategy. I ask Enzo for the Apple Pencil so I can put my signature on the document for validation.
Once the document is signed, I continue eating my breakfast.
A few minutes later, I head out of the villa with Enzo following behind.
We are traveling to the Doge's Palace, which is located in Venice. And since we are still in Milan, it will take us a few hours to get there by car.
As we move near my car, I ask Enzo, "Is everything loaded in the cars?"
"Yes, everyone is waiting for you." He responds.
When I reach my car a bodyguard was already waiting for me with the passenger door opened. I enter the car and the bodyguard closes the door. Enzo walks to the driver's seat and once we are both buckle up, we head to our destination.
3 HOURS LATER
I am situated in the Doge's Palace's Great Council Chamber. I was looking at Tintoretto's Paradise, an artwork inside the room. The painting represents Heaven on Earth. The purpose of the artwork was to look over the council that elected the new Doge in order for them to make the appropriate decisions regarding the election.
And I like to think that what I am about to do is the appropriate decision for our organization.
With that thought in mind, I give the signal to start to Enzo, who had been standing on the other side of the room.
A fire alarm went off seconds later throughout the whole museum.
Security rushed to the cause of the commotion as people hurried to exit the museum.
Meanwhile, Alonzo was in one of the Doge's apartments doing the Swap of the Century.
ALONZO'S POV
"It's go time." I hear Enzo say through the intercom.
"On it." I whisper.
I move inside the room, looking at the art and in the middle of the room you cannot miss the most lavishing necklace of the century. On bold letters the name of the necklace reads "La Splendida Dea Del Secolo".
Seconds later a fire alarm was heard throughout the whole museum. And that is my cue to start with the plan.
Waiting for everyone to move towards the exit door, I walk behind them, seeming to exit with them, but closing the door at the last second.
Once alone in the room, I have approximately 3 minutes to do the swap of the necklace before all of the cameras start working again.
But here is the thing, the necklace is inside the glass with three different alarms for security, and if I trigger any of them I will be in trouble.
So, in order to do the swap, I have to turn off the alarms first.
And the time is ticking.
2 MINUTES AND 50 SECONDS
I put on protective gloves before starting the plan to cover my fingerprints.
Then, I picked the lock of the box that is beneath the glass where the necklace is located. Once the security box is opened, I look at the wires. As expected, they are the same color, but here is the catch: they are different shapes.
I have to pick the Snake Wire, the Spike Wire, the Spiral Wire, and the Straight Wire, in that order.
The only problem is that there are four wires of each type. If I make a mistake, the plan will go to ruins and Ms. Cattani will have my head.
2 MINUTES AND 40 SECONDS
The Snake Wires are all tangled. The way that I can identify the one that I have to cut is not so difficult, but at the same time, it is quite tricky. A snake has different types of locomotion, and these wires are build that same way. One has a structure akin to a Concertina, another to a Serpentine, a third to a Sidewinding, and a fourth to a Caterpillar. They all look rather similar to me despite the fact that they are all distinct.
The one that I have to cut is the Concertina, but I always get it confused with the Sidewinding.
I take out a diagonal plier from the backpack that I was carrying and I take the Snake Wire that looks like the Concertina locomotion in my hands.
Or at least the one that I think is the Concertina one.
I hesitate for a second and I hold my breath when I put the diagonal plier on the wire ready to cut it. I close my eyes and make the cut.
But nothing bad happens, so I release my breath with a sigh of relief.
2 MINUTES AND 20 SECONDS
The second wire I have to cut is the Spike. This one is a little bit complicated, since I have two pairs. And I have to figure out which one is the correct wire.
2 MINUTES AND 18 SECONDS
"Alonzo, what is your status?" I hear Enzo's voice through the intercom.
"I am cutting the wires." I respond, I clean the sweat forming on my forehead with my hand.
"What's your time?"
I look at the watch on my wrist, "2 minutes and 14 seconds."
I take a deep breath and I say with a worried voice, "Enzo, I don't know which wire to cut."
"Which type?" He whispers seconds later.
"The Spike." I respond back immediately.
"The one you have to cut starts straight at the top and then the spike forms midway."
With Enzo's instructions I inspect the wires and indeed, one that is tangled with another one starts on a straight line.
"Found it." I say and cut the wire without any hesitation.
2 MINUTES
The next one is the Spiral Wire. This one is the easiest one, since this wire doesn't trigger any alarm. Plus, I just have to find the spiral of 4, which I find easily. I cut that one and move on to the next one.
1 MINUTE AND 50 SECONDS
The only one left is the Straight Wire. This is one is the trickiest one of them all. The four wires are standing alone. This type doesn't have a single thing that will distinguish the one I have to cut.
I thought about cutting all of them at the same time, but the diagonal plier will not cut all four of them, the wire is too thick for that.
The other option is to cut two of them at the same time, which gives me a 70% probability of success. And since I am running out of time, I will go with option two.
I grab a second diagonal plier and with both hands I cut two wires.
1 MINUTE AND 30 SECONDS
An alarm was heard throughout the whole museum and a steel door appeared at the entrance of this room, locking me inside.
My breath gets caught up in my throat.
"Alonzo, the security guards are coming your way!" Ms. Cattani's voice can be heard through the intercom.
That made me take a deep breath to calm my nerves. I grab the other two wire and cut them both at the same time.
I have nothing to lose anyway, I just trigger an alarm that locked me inside. Luckily, it was not the one that shots an axe aiming at your head. So, on a positive note, my handsome face is still intact.
"I am almost done, Ms. Cattani." I respond her back.
The glass opens once the alarms are off.
I take out a box from my backpack, I grab the necklace that is inside the glass and I put it on the box. Then, I take out a replica of the necklace from my bag and put it inside the glass.
After securing the box with the correct necklace on my backpack, I close the glass and I close the security box beneath it. I mean, if someone opens it they will clearly notice the cut wires, but that is a problem of tomorrow me. Present me, has to escape this room and give the necklace to Ms. Cattani.
And that is perhaps the most difficult part of this whole plan.
1 MINUTE AND 5 SECONDS
There is not much of an escape plan in this situation, to be honest. The only way I can escape this room is through the front door. The same one that is blocked by a steel door, a gift from the alarm I triggered. And to put the cherry on top, I hear the guards trying to open that said door at this exact moment.
But still, I look inside the room for an exit.
Stupid move if you ask me, since yesterday I study this room and I knew that if an alarm was trigger I would be fucked.
58 SECONDS
All I have left is to take out a three section staff that I had prepared as a weapon.
And to my surprise, the steel door opened faster than I thought.
"STOP RIGHT THERE!" The one leading the guards yells at me.
"PUT DOWN YOUR WEAPON!" She yells with authority.
And all I can think about is how that 30% probability of failure will haunt me.
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DICCIONARY:
"La Splendida Dea Del Secolo" translates to "The Beautiful Goddess of the Century".
NOTE:
Hello! Thank you so much for patiently waiting for this chapter! I truly appreciate all of the reads, comments and votes on my book! I hope everyone has an awesome day/night♡