The deafening silence before execution was broken not by a gunshot, but by the heavy, rhythmic thunder of automatic fire tearing through the haze.

The peace of Tuscany was shattered on a rain-slicked Tuesday night.

It wasn't an attack from the outside; old man Marcone’s surviving son, Mateo Marcone, had tracked the jet’s flight path using a corrupted aviation authority official.

At 3:00 AM, heavy explosive charges breached the southern perimeter wall of the villa.

Aaliyah woke up to the sound of gunfire echoing across the courtyard. She didn't panic; three months of living with Roman Rossi had turned her instincts into steel.

She immediately grabbed her small revolver from the nightstand, rushed to Leo’s room, and pulled the sleeping boy out of bed.

“Aaliyah!” Marco—who had been sent to Italy to command her personal guard—burst into the hallway, his rifle raised. “They have thirty men! They’re pushing through the garden! We need to reach the armored vehicle in the underground garage!”

They moved fast through the stone corridors, the sound of glass breaking and foreign shouting drawing closer.

As they reached the entrance to the underground garage, the double doors blew inward with a deafening crash. Smoke rolled into the corridor, and three heavy-set mercenaries stepped through, automatic shotguns raised.

Marco fired his rifle, taking down two of them, but a blast from the third mercenary caught Marco in the shoulder, knocking him to the floor.

Aaliyah pulled Leo behind a stone pillar. Her heart hammered against her ribs as she looked down at her revolver. Six shots. Three mercenaries left in the immediate vicinity.

“Give up the boy!” a harsh voice shouted through the smoke in accented English. “Mateo Marcone wants him alive! You don't have to die, girl!”

Aaliyah took a deep breath. She remembered Roman’s voice in her head: Safety off, both hands, sight alignment, breathe out, squeeze.

She stepped out from behind the pillar and fired three rapid shots.

The first mercenary took two rounds in the chest and collapsed. The second lunged forward, but Aaliyah dropped to one knee, firing her remaining three rounds into his center mass.

The gun clicked empty.

The third mercenary raised his shotgun, aiming directly at Aaliyah’s head. “End of the line, bitch.”

Before he could pull the trigger, a dark sedan slammed through the wooden garage doors at sixty miles an hour, striking the mercenary and pinning him against the stone wall.