"AAAAA!" Leah's scream shattered the silence, echoing through every corner of the usually quiet house. Her world collapsed the moment her eyes caught the figure of her father lying helpless on the floor, drenched in warm blood. The metallic stench of gore filled the air, piercing her senses.
Leah's knees suddenly gave out. She slumped down, falling to the cold floor right in front of her father's rigid body. Her trembling hands reached out, hovering in the air, hesitating to touch him.
"D-dad. Dad."
Her voice caught in her throat, accompanied by a pathetic sob. Tears began to flood her deathly pale face.
Inside the room, several men dressed in black who had been ransacking the space immediately turned their attention toward her. One of them moved quickly, pressing the cold muzzle of a pistol directly against Leah's temple.
"Boss, there is a girl. It looks like his daughter," the man reported in a hoarse voice.
"Dad. Dad, wake up!" Leah screamed hysterically, her body shaking violently under the threat of the weapon.
"Shut up! Or I will put a hole in your head right now!" the man barked, pressing the tip of the gun harder against Leah's skin.
Fabio Casso, the Boss, walked out of the bedroom with a cold expression. In his hand, he carried an FBI laptop belonging to Jackson Sterling, a federal agent who had long been a thorn in their organization's side.
"Just kill her if she cannot stay quiet," Fabio said flatly, walking toward Leah while carrying the laptop.
The subordinate smirked, his finger beginning to pull the trigger. However, a heavy voice interrupted with absolute authority.
"Stop!"
Firm footsteps approached. A tall figure parted the crowd, coming toward Leah who was still cowering in fear with her hands covering her face.
"Leah?" Fabio whispered softly, almost inaudibly.
Leah froze. That voice, it was a voice she heard often. With what little courage she had left, she lowered her hands slowly. When her eyes opened and caught the figure in front of her, Leah's heart seemed to stop beating.
"Ar. Arnold?" Leah's voice choked.
The man standing there, with hands still stained by her father's blood, was her own boyfriend. Arnold, the man she loved, now stood as the monster who had destroyed her life.
Leah's vision blurred, shifting slowly from her father's stiff corpse to her lover's hand. There, in his fingers, he now gripped a black firearm that still felt hot.
Leah shook her head hard, as if trying to banish the bitter reality from her mind. "What happened? Who are you really?!" she screamed with a voice broken by hysteria.
Fabio closed his eyes for a moment, his jaw tightening. The name 'Arnold' felt like a thorn piercing his pride. He never imagined that the FBI agent who was the target of his operation tonight was the father of the girl he had been dating under a false identity.
"Take this," Fabio ordered coldly, handing the looted laptop to one of his men.
"Boss, we have to leave immediately," one of the armed men whispered, calling him by a title that made Leah's heart sink. Boss?
Fabio knelt in front of Leah. For the first time, the cold face of the mafia boss showed a faint trace of regret.
"You. Was it you who killed my father?" Leah asked in a low voice that trembled violently. "Answer me, Arnold!"
Fabio stood frozen. He was unable to answer, because the man named 'Arnold' whom Leah loved never actually existed. Instinctively, Fabio reached out, trying to wipe the tears from Leah's cheek. However, Leah immediately slapped the hand away with pure hatred.
"Who are you?!" Leah screamed in frustration, beginning to beat against Fabio's chest with her remaining strength. "Why did you kill my father?! Why did you lie to me!"
Leah's blows, which were initially blind and frantic, gradually weakened as her world went dark. Her body went limp, but before she could hit the blood-stained floor, Fabio caught her swiftly. He held her tightly.
"I am taking her. Move fast, we do not have much time!" Fabio commanded firmly.
Carrying Leah's limp body in his arms, he took wide strides out of the house, leaving behind a pool of blood and the fake memories he had just destroyed.
***
Inside the speeding car, Fabio let the unconscious Leah lean fully against his chest. He stared at the girl's pale face, and suddenly his memory was dragged back to a simple motel room the night before.
Under the dim lights of the room, they had held each other without clothes beneath the same blanket. Leah looked so peaceful, resting her chin on Fabio's chest, the man she knew as Arnold.
"My father wants to meet you, Arnold. Are you willing to see him?" Leah asked quietly, her eyes looking at Fabio with hope.
Fabio had frowned slightly, his always-alert brain beginning to spin. "Did you not say your father lived far away in Montana?"
"Yes, but he has been here for three days. He is renting a small house," Leah replied cheerfully. "He said there is a house-building project near here. I told you before, right, that my father is a skilled carpenter? He often travels to different cities for projects."
Fabio rubbed Leah's shoulder. In his mind, a carpenter from Montana was not a threat. He only needed to pretend to be Arnold, a small businessman and restaurant owner.
"Okay, I will meet him," Fabio said, kissing the top of Leah's head gently.
Fabio had kept his promise to meet Leah's father, but in a way he never could have imagined.
"Boss, are we going back to the house or straight to headquarters?"
The hoarse voice of his subordinate suddenly startled Fabio, dragging him back to the cold reality. The memory of the motel last night vanished, replaced by the adrenaline of the escape.
Fabio stared at the road rushing past the car window before turning back to Leah's body, still unconscious in his arms.
"To headquarters," Fabio said firmly, his voice returning to a cold ice. "The forensics team and other FBI agents will arrive there soon. They will realize immediately that we took Leah."
Fabio tightened his grip on her. He knew that by taking Leah, he was not just kidnapping a witness, but also challenging the entire federal department to hunt him down.