Chapter 4 - The Midnight Raid
The rain had turned into a thick, blinding fog by two AM when three unmarked black SUVs slipped out of the garage behind Romano’s. Vincent sat in the front seat of the lead vehicle, a heavy tactical rifle resting against his knee. Beside him, Marco checked his sidearm.
The Martinez apartment was located in a dilapidated tenement building in the Humboldt Park neighborhood. The streetlights were broken, casting the brick facades in deep, eerie shadows.
"We go in fast, we go in quiet," Vincent instructed over the tactical radio. "Horizon likely has a cleanup crew inside looking for the recorder. No survivors if they draw blood."
They moved up the stairwell like ghosts, their boots making no sound on the cracked linoleum. When they reached apartment 3B, the door was already ajar, the lock shattered by a crowbar.
Vincent kicked the door open, his weapon raised.
Inside, the apartment was completely ransacked. Sofas were ripped open, mattresses overturned, and family photographs shattered on the floor. In the center of the living room stood two men in black tactical gear, holding electronic sweeping devices.
"Federal marshals!" one of the men shouted, reaching for a holstered pistol.
"Feds don't work for Horizon," Vincent growled, his rifle barking twice. The suppressor muffled the sound to a sharp hiss, and both men collapsed onto the ruined carpet before they could fire a shot.
Vincent sprinted down the narrow hallway to the small bedroom with pink butterfly stickers on the door. He knelt beside the overturned toddler bed, his large hands tossing aside broken plastic toys until he found it—a worn, one-eared brown teddy bear tucked behind the radiator.
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He ripped open the back seam of the bear. Inside, wrapped in foil, was a sleek, military-grade encrypted flash drive and a digital recorder.
"Got it," Vincent said into his radio. "Move out. We have what we need."
