As the night wore on, I started to suspect that this might not have been the brightest idea.

  But really, who would bother with caution when committing an act of justice? Especially when fueled by whiskey, camaraderie, and the reckless confidence that came with both. Barely ten minutes into the first stages of our pn, we had already cobbled together something that almost resembled a strategy.

  Almost.

  There were four of us: me, Federico, Roberto, and Andreas. And, oh, were they inspired. Not just by my recent exploits in Rimelion, but by what they called my “genius tactical maneuvering.” Or, as any sane person would call it, theft. But no, no, not theft, clever and efficient methods of item acquisition. Completely different things.

  Obviously.

  So we went to the cars.

  Every single one of them was wasted, except for me, of course. I had only had a few whiskeys.

  Which, by my fwless and unbiased assessment, put me at the peak of my decision-making abilities. As I settled into Roberto’s car, I tugged my hoodie closer and gnced out at the others.

  Federico slipped in his at least sixty-year-old sports car, the rust and dents telling stories of questionable driving skills and even more questionable choices. He and Roberto were already mid-argument, through the open windows, exchanging rapid-fire Italian voices bouncing between pyful and intense.

  “Stronzo! Your clutch is slipping, amico, like your st attempt at dating!” Roberto barked, ughter mixed in his words.

  “Porca miseria! You talk about slipping when you brake like an old woman?” Federico shot back, revving his engine in protest.

  They exchanged more words and I grew bored, before, without warning, Federico floored it.

  What?

  Tires screamed against the pavement as he shot forward, the old beast of a car roaring down the street. Roberto was right behind him, gunning the engine as the chase began. “What did you say?” I asked, gripping the seat.

  “Bel! Friendly bet!” Roberto just cackled, weaving through traffic as though AI-driven cars were mere suggestions rather than obstacles.

  With a squeeze between a building and a bus stop—a bus stop—he overtook Federico on the sidewalk. The AI-cars, consistently w-abiding, wheezed past us, programmed to ignore the chaotic recklessness unfolding between us.

  I breathed, finally letting myself sink into the seat. Alright, maybe, maybe, this was fun. And then Federico took the next turn sideways. The drift went on for what felt like a century, smoke curling up from his tires as his car slid effortlessly around the corner, reciming his lead like a warden ghost slipping through a wall.

  Roberto cursed under his breath, shifting gears, his grin sharpened into something predatory. I chanced a gnce at the speedometer and felt the color drain from my face. In all of automotive history, these kinds of speeds were only ever meant for the Autobahn.

  Not in the middle of a city.

  Not with pedestrians potentially lurking in the shadows.

  Roberto, undeterred, found his opening. Timing his turn just right, he cut in at the next intersection, barely missing the curb, pulling ahead by inches. Federico swerved, trying to compensate, but it was too te.

  The finish line, an empty crossroads ahead, was fast approaching. I braced myself, knuckles white against the door handle.

  Roberto won by a hair.

  Federico, accepting defeat with an exaggerated groan even I heard it, smmed the brakes, and we skidded to a halt at a nearby parking lot.

  The smell of burnt rubber lingered in the air, mingling with the night breeze. The industrial district loomed around us, the cold steel and concrete structures standing tall like silent judges to our stupidity.

  As usual, Roberto drifted into the parking spot. “Show-off,” I giggled, finally exhaling the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.

  Roberto fshed a cocky grin. “It works! And guess what? Abbiamo vinto!”

  “Never again,” Andreas groaned, stumbling out of the Federico’s car. His face paled before he turned and emptied the contents of his stomach onto the pavement. “Ten beers lost!”

  I clutched my stomach, testing my own stability. Nope. Still fine. Whiskey remained undefeated.

  “Here,” Andreas said, motioning toward an old building, its gray industrial paint peeling away in rge fkes, revealing corroded steel underneath. The windows were dark, lifeless, as though the pce had been abandoned for years.

  We stepped inside.

  And there, in the dim, cavernous space, we found exactly what we came for.

  A wheeled mobile crane stood before us The rge machine had the kind of raw presence that made you pause, bright yellow paint scuffed and streaked with years of grime, thick hydraulic arms curled inward like a sleeping not-a-dragon.

  Chains rattled softly in the still air as a massive wrecking ball hung suspended from the towering boom, swaying slightly, as if eager to be let loose.

  I stared. Blinked. Stared some more.

  “You don’t actually want to use… that, do you?” I half-asked, half-accused Andreas, who was already halfway to the crane, grinning like a low-budget supervilin.

  “Oh, we are,” he decred with the confidence of a man who had definitely made worse decisions in his life. He reached out and tapped a small electronic device attached to the side of the crane, probably a security lock, his fingers moving with the dexterity of a drunk hacker.

  “Lemme put boss’ code,” he muttered, then smirked as he typed. “One-two-three-two-one. Done.” A loud clunk echoed as the lock disengaged.

  Roberto slipped inside the cab, while Andreas, brimming with unchecked enthusiasm, started mashing buttons like a kid with a new arcade machine. The control panel lit up, humming to life as an array of dials, levers, and screens blinked into existence. The start-up sequence was… almost rocket science.

  At least to my definitely sober brain.

  “Signorina, hop in!” Roberto called, his signature phrase delivered with the same level of unshakable confidence as if he were inviting me into a luxury sports car instead of a construction-grade instrument of destruction.

  I squinted at the interior.

  “Only one seat,” I deadpanned. “Hard pass.”

  While I weighed my very limited options, Andreas had already climbed into an excavator, his grin only widening as he grasped the controls like a man born to do nothing but wreak absolute havoc.

  Meanwhile, Federico somehow found a pneumatic demolition hammer as it said on the cover. With zero hesitation, he threw it into the excavator’s bucket, nodding to Andreas, who in turn raised the bucket slightly, giving it a little test swing.

  And then, because, clearly, this was a night for terrible ideas, Federico climbed into the bucket with it.

  I blinked.

  First. Andreas was in the excavator. Did he need to be? No. But was he thrilled about it? Absolutely.

  Second. Federico stood up in the excavator bucket with a grin. With a pneumatic demolition hammer.

  Third. I had no idea what the pn was, but at this point, they didn’t either. They were just fully committed to the aesthetic of destruction.

  “No,” I whispered, horrified. “No, no, no. That’s not how physics works! Wait, Roberto!” I yelled, because the crane was already rumbling to life, growling like a not-a-dragon stirred from slumber. I climbed into the cab, gripping the metal frame, and found myself face-to-face with Roberto.

  “Ah, come on, signorina! Just sit on my p,” he said, completely unfazed, fshing me a grin as if he hadn’t just proposed the worst seating arrangement in history. “Best seat in the house, garantito!”

  With a pointed look that promised swift vengeance if he so much as smirked, I did exactly that, pnting myself firmly on his p. He didn’t hesitate, hands immediately shifting to the controls, while I leaned slightly into his chest, trying not to overthink how absurd this entire situation had become.

  “This won’t end well…” I muttered under my breath, eyes locked on the wrecking ball that was about to become the city’s worst nightmare.

  “Probability is less than 1%, Miss Charlie,” Jerry finally graced me with his presence.

  I murmured even more quietly, “That’s the same probability you gave st time I asked you if things would go wrong.”

  “Yes,” Jerry admitted. “That is statistically correct.”

  I groaned, and then Roberto pulled the lever.

  The crane swayed as Roberto navigated the empty streets, its towering arm slicing through the darkness with a grace of a [Titan of Earth]. The excavator followed close behind, Andreas hunched over the controls like some mad engineer overseeing his mechanical beast.

  Strangely, nobody came out to question us.

  No sirens. No security drones. Not a single “Hey, why is there a goddamn wrecking ball in the middle of the city?” It was almost insulting how easily we rolled through town, driving heavy machinery as if we were delivering pizzas instead of imminent structural annihition.

  It should have been harder. It should have been impossible. Instead, it was just... a night.

  By the time we reached the illegal mansion, I regretted I didn’t pack any whiskey on the go. The towering walls loomed before us, five meters high, lined with decorative ironwork that tried, and failed, to make them look anything less than fortress-like.

  I tilted my head back, eyeing the showy dispy of wealth. Gold-trimmed window frames. Statues of… were those Greek gods?

  Of course they were.

  The entire thing reeked of a man with more money than taste. The kind of person who used estate as a verb. The kind who put Maison on his property title to pretend he wasn’t just another tax-evading bastard who should’ve been fined out of existence.

  Andreas stood beside me, hands on his hips, staring up at the monolith like a sculptor contempting his next masterpiece. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Huh,” he finally muttered. “Forgot ‘bout air compressor.”

  Federico, still holding the pneumatic demolition hammer like some sort of righteous avenger, froze. His entire world crumbled to dust before my eyes. “No,” he whispered, staring at the silent, utterly useless machine in his grip. He lifted it experimentally, swinging it like it actually worked, like sheer willpower alone could bring it to life.

  Roberto cpped Andreas on the back with a grin that could only mean danger. “Rex! You know what solves every problem?”

  I sighed. “A good pn?”

  “No, bel.” His grin widened. “A wrecking ball!”

  Before I could object, he spun on his heel and sprinted back toward the crane. The distant roar of an engine shattered the stillness of the night. The ground shook as Roberto rolled into view, guiding the beast forward like a [Imperial Knight] leading a warhorse into battle.

  The wrecking ball swayed, gathering momentum.

  Then it swung.

  The impact was deafening.

  Stone cracked like thunder, a shuddering boom that rippled through the air. The once-imposing wall buckled inward, chunks of concrete exploding outward like shrapnel. The force sent ripples up the entire structure.

  Windows shattered, gilded balconies groaned under their own weight, and those ridiculous statues teetered on their pedestals before toppling like dominoes.

  Andreas, clearly caught up in the spectacle, revved the excavator.

  With a trained ease, he maneuvered its mechanical arm and smmed it straight into the crumbling remains of the front gate. Metal screeched, the wrought-iron bars twisting like melted wax before giving way entirely.

  Roberto yanked on the controls again. The wrecking ball swung a second time, obliterating what little dignity the Maison had left. Chunks of debris rained down, kicking up plumes of dust so thick they coated the night air like a sandstorm.

  A particurly stubborn pilr wobbled, groaned, and then, with an earth-shaking crash, colpsed right onto a vish marble fountain.

  Then, just as I was starting to admire our work, sirens. A distant wail at first. Then closer. Louder. The kind of gut-sinking sound that spelled prison time. “Time to bail!” Andreas yelled, already leaping down from the excavator.

  I didn’t move. Didn’t even flinch. Too te. I was prepared to accept my fate. If this was how it ended, so be it. But, as. Roberto had other pns. We waited for what felt like an eternity, half a minute, at best, as he finished his damn job.

  The wrecking ball swung one st time.

  BOOM.

  More stone colpsed. A towering archway, likely imported at great expense from somewhere wildly inappropriate, caved in on itself. Roberto finally killed the engine, wiped his hands like he’d just finished a casual shift at work, and hopped down from the crane, beaming.

  “E maison?” He spread his arms dramatically. “Puff! Gone!”

  Then his grin faltered as the wailing of sirens drew closer. His eyes darted toward the street. “Merda! We’re not getting back in the machines, are we?”

  “Cazzo!” Federico hissed, eyes darting wildly. “What about my prints?!”

  “Forget prints! We’re toast,” I ughed, half in disbelief.

  “Rosalia!” Federico blurted, as if shouting a name would somehow solve the problem.

  “Ah, brilnte, amico!” Roberto snapped his fingers, already jogging away from the crime scene. “I like the way you think!”

  I exchanged a long, exhausted look with Andreas. He looked just as confused as I was, then we nodded at each other.

  We ran.

  “You beat the probability,” Jerry announced, sounding surprised.

  As it turned out, Rosalia wasn’t a code name. Rosalia was a woman. More specifically, a chain-smoking, mildly terrifying woman who happened to live nearby and owned a car. A battered old Fiat that had absolutely seen some shit in its lifetime, but it had five seats.

  If you discounted the overwhelming stench of tobacco, cheap perfume, it was a fine Fiat experience. She didn’t even ask questions.

  Didn’t blink at the four dust-covered, slightly panicked idiots piling into her car. Didn’t react when Roberto, without missing a beat, kissed her hand like some kind of [Imperial Official] before throwing himself into the driver’s seat.

  She just exhaled a cloud of smoke, muttered “Idioti,” and flicked the key into the ignition.

  And with that, we were off.

  Not back home.

  Not to hide.

  Not to reflect on our frankly terrible life choices.

  No.

  We went back to the pub.

  Because after erasing a millionaire’s illegal Maison from existence, there was only one logical next step.

  Whiskey.