Chapter 56
The confrontation between Dante and Katerina was a horrific psychological crucible. Every time Dante raised his weapon, the image of Maya’s face paralyzed his trigger finger for a microsecond. Katerina ruthlessly exploited that hesitation, launching an unrelenting barrage of lightning-fast, razor-sharp strikes. "You've gone soft, Russo!" Katerina taunted, her blade slicing through the fabric of Dante’s coat. "Love has completely killed your killer instinct!" Dante barely dodged a lethal slash aimed at his throat, stepping backward. He closed his eyes for a fraction of a second. When he opened them, his pale gray irises held absolutely zero hesitation. He realized that to truly protect the real Maya, he had to destroy this vile deception. "You are not her," Dante said, his voice dropping to a freezing, abyssal depth. "You will never have her light." Katerina lunged again. This time, Dante didn't retreat. He stepped into her guard, parrying her blade with his forearm, and delivered a devastating elbow strike to her temple. Katerina staggered. Dante instantly seized her knife-wielding wrist, snapping it backward until the bone shattered loudly. She screamed, dropping the blade. Dante used her body as a ballistic shield, pivoting flawlessly to fire three hollow-point rounds directly into Antoine’s chest just as the Frenchman tried to aim his rifle. Antoine collapsed, dead before he hit the concrete. Dante shoved Katerina away, letting her crumple to the floor, groaning in agony. "The Consortium... will never... let you go..." Katerina wheezed. Dante ignored her curse. He walked to the warehouse’s structural pillars, triggering the remote C4 charges he had planted on his approach. He had to bury all evidence and remnants of this facility at the bottom of the sea. "Consider this a final warning to the masters pulling your strings," Dante said coldly, turning toward the exit. "If they ever look at my family again, I will bring hell directly to their doorstep." Ten minutes later, the entire container warehouse was blown into a colossal fireball, reducing everything to ash. Dante watched from a distance, his face a mask of stone. The monster inside him had done its job; now it was time to put it back to sleep.
