MERCURY | mcu [1]

𝟭𝟰 | 𝗮𝗻 𝗲𝗺𝗽𝗶𝗿𝗲 𝗳𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗻

Edoardo di Santo didn't even look up from his desk.

  Lorena held her pistol in one hand, knife in the other. As she lay eyes on her father, he looked older than she remembered, as though he had aged several decades in a few days. He continued to write, head bent over his work.

  Lorena raised her gun.

  'I saw you coming,' he said in Italian.

  She hesitated.

  Her father raised his head, his dark, watery eyes meeting hers. He turned the screen on his desk to face her. Surveillance footage of the upper floors. The agents all lying there, lifeless.

  On one camera, she noticed Isabella, clutching her clipboard and walking past a corridor where Lorena had just hidden an agent. She disappeared from view, blissfully unaware of what had occurred mere metres from her.

  Lorena clenched her jaw.

  'I knew you'd come,' he went on. 'The Soldier says you're dead, but he never confirmed the body. Don't worry, the bosses took care of him.'

  In her ear, Barton said, 'Confirm target acquired.'

  Lorena stared at her father. She trained her gun on his forehead, her finger hovered over the trigger.

  'They were not happy he left you alive,' di Santo continued. 'Do you happen to know why he did that?'

  Lorena did not reply.

  'Neither do we. They wiped him after that one. They were going to send him after you again, but he can't be trusted now. Worried he might start thinking for himself again.'

  She swallowed thickly.

  'Anyway,' he father said, 'I knew you'd come back for me.'

  'Di Santo,' Barton's voice said. 'Do you copy?'

  Edoardo di Santo raised from his chair. Lorena followed him with her pistol.

  'You're a fool for coming here,' he said. 'I taught you many things, Lorena, but to act foolish was not one.'

  Lorena's throat tightened. It seemed someone was tying barbed wire around her neck.

  'Your new friends will be dead within the hour,' he continued. 'I've already alerted the Hunter--'

  BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

  He fell, lifeless, into his chair, four gaping bullet wounds spilling blood from his chest and head. For a moment, Lorena stared, eyes burning, vision blurring, at her dead father.

  She had killed him. She had murdered him right in his chair.

  She had imagined this scene, in her weakest moments, millions of times before, and yet now, here she was, with her father lying dead before her, blood gushing from his wounds. She had been victorious in those fantasies, proud and free that she had finally completed what no one else had succeeded to do. She had walked away, a free woman, for the first time in fifty years.