She Was Just the Night Nurse Until She Saved the Mafia Boss’s Mother From Three Hitmen—Then He Came Looking for Her

They exited the service stairwell onto the 40th floor behind a row of industrial linen carts.

The corridor was silent, carpeted in deep crimson velvet. Fifty feet down the hall, outside Penthouse Suite 4001, two men stood holding suppressed assault rifles, their attention focused entirely on the main elevator bank at the far end of the hallway.

"Two targets," Marin whispered from behind the wall. "Body armor on both. Headshots or pelvic cradle."

"Marko, left," Elias ordered. "Marin, take the right."

"No," Marin said, putting a hand on Elias's arm. "No shooting yet. The moment a gun goes off, Moretti locks himself in the panic room at the back of the suite, and you lose your leverage."

She pulled two small smoke canisters from her belt—military-grade M18 tactical smoke.

"Roll them down the hall," Marin instructed Marko. "When the fog hits, we move under the plume."

Marko looked at Elias, who nodded once.

Marko pulled the pins and rolled the canisters along the crimson carpet. Within four seconds, thick, grey smoke billowed out, filling the corridor from floor to ceiling.

The two guards outside the suite panicked, raising their weapons and shouting into their radios.

Marin moved like a shadow through the grey haze. She didn't run; she moved with a fast, gliding walk that kept her feet silent against the carpet.

She appeared behind the guard on the right before he could turn. She drove her open palm upward into the base of his nose, driving the bone fragment backward, then caught his rifle before it could hit the floor.

Beside her, Marko grabbed the second guard in a rear chokehold, dragging him into the smoke until he went limp.

Marin stood outside the double mahogany doors of Suite 4001.

"Door is locked from inside," Marko whispered, pulling a breaching charge from his pocket.

"No," Marin said. She pointed to the electronic keycard lock. She pulled her penlight, unscrewed the rear cap, and extracted a small copper jumper wire she had prepared earlier. She jammed the wire into the maintenance port beneath the reader.