It was eleven in the morning.
The secondary staging house was a low stone lodge, hidden behind a cluster of pines half a mile from the main highway.
Inside the kitchen, the air smelled of stale coffee and damp wool. Luca stood by the window with a tactical phone pressed to his ear, his jaw tight as he listened to a report from the eastern grid.
"Say that again," Luca demanded.
He listened for another ten seconds, then lowered the phone and turned to face Nico and Mara.
"Castellano just made his move," Luca reported flatly. "Three armoured utility trucks, forty shooters. They're breaching our eastern munitions corridor at the valley pass right now. He's taking advantage of the payroll confusion to seize the supply depots before Bruno can react."
Petyr, who was leaning against the doorframe peeling an apple with a pocketknife, spat a seed onto the floor. "Castellano is a scavenger. He smells blood in the water."
