Chapter 2
Lorenzo did not move.
He did not gasp.
His expression remained carved from stone.
Only the smallest tightening of his jaw told Anna that he understood.
He did not look toward Russo’s armed men.
Instead, he looked at his watch.
“Is that so?”
His tone was casual.
Then the room exploded into violence.
Lorenzo did not reach for a pistol first.
He drove his foot beneath the heavy oak poker table and kicked upward with enormous force.
The edge of the table struck Russo in the chest.
The old man and his glass of Strega went backward at the same moment the 3 enforcers behind him drew engraved Berettas from beneath their coats.
Gunfire tore through the room.
Lorenzo seized the back of Anna’s neck and dragged her downward.
She struck the floor hard enough to lose her breath.
The overturned poker table crashed beside them, becoming a barricade.
Bullets punched into the wood-paneled walls.
Splinters and plaster fell around them.
Leo had drawn his weapon a fraction of a second before Russo’s men.
He fired with precise, controlled movements.
2 of Russo’s men fell before Anna could scream.
Anna remained pressed against Lorenzo’s chest beneath the overturned table.
Her eyes squeezed shut.
She covered her ears.
The gunfire vibrated through her teeth.
Against her cheek, she could feel Lorenzo’s heart.
It was beating steadily.
He was not panicking.
This was an environment he understood.
Lorenzo reached inside his coat and drew a sleek suppressed tactical pistol.
He did not fire blindly.
He waited.
Listened.
Counted.
Bang.
Bang.
Click.
An empty magazine.
Lorenzo surged upward.
He fired twice.
The suppressed shots were almost disturbingly quiet after the Berettas.
2 sharp sounds.
Then a heavy body hitting the floor.
Silence.
The room filled with cordite and the metallic scent of blood.
“Clear.”
Leo’s voice came from near the entrance.
Cold.
Professional.
Anna remained on the floor.
Her entire body trembled.
Hands seized her shoulders.
She gasped and opened her eyes.
Lorenzo was kneeling in front of her.
Plaster dust covered his Brioni suit.
He appeared otherwise untouched.
“Are you hit?”
His hands moved quickly along her arms.
He searched for blood.
“No.”
Anna could barely speak.
She looked past him.
Russo’s 3 men were dead.
Don Vincenzo himself remained alive.
A fallen chair pinned part of him to the floor.
He held one shoulder where a bullet had grazed him.
He groaned in pain.
Lorenzo stood.
His attention moved from Anna to Russo.
He crossed the damaged room.
Broken glass cracked beneath his shoes.
Then he stopped above the old man.
“You broke the truce, Vincenzo.”
Lorenzo’s voice contained none of the fury Anna expected.
It was worse.
It was the calm of someone who had already decided what came next.
“In my city.”
“In my club.”
Russo spat blood onto Lorenzo’s shoe.
“You must die.”
Lorenzo only sighed.
He did not shoot him.
Instead, he looked toward Anna.
She was leaning against the wall.
Her face had gone pale.
Her knees barely supported her.
“Leo.”
Lorenzo did not look away from her.
“Clean this up.”
A pause.
“Send Russo back to Naples in a wooden box.”
His voice remained controlled.
“Tell his sons the shipping routes belong to the Moretti family now.”
“Yes, boss.”
Lorenzo returned to Anna.
He said nothing.
He removed his slate-gray cashmere overcoat and placed it over her shoulders.
The coat nearly swallowed her.
It was heavy.
Warm.
It smelled of Tuscan Leather and gunpowder.
Lorenzo placed an arm around Anna’s waist and took most of her weight.
Together, they left the blood-soaked club and entered the freezing November air.
The Maybach remained exactly where they had left it.
Once they were inside, the doors closed with a heavy sound.
The partition rose.
Anna sank into the leather seat.
She pulled Lorenzo’s coat more tightly around herself.
The adrenaline was disappearing.
What remained was exhaustion and fear.
Lorenzo opened the console.
He poured a glass of Macallan 25.
Then handed it to Anna.
“Drink.”
Her hands shook as she took it.
She swallowed the entire measure at once.
The whiskey burned down her throat.
It helped bring her back into the present.
Lorenzo sat beside her.
Streetlights passed across the hard lines of his face.
“You knew who he was when we walked into the room.”
His tone was quiet.
It was not a question.
Anna looked at her lap.
“I knew his voice.”
She swallowed.
“And he recognized me.”
Lorenzo waited.
“He used an idiom.”
Anna continued.
“He said the accountant’s debt was going to be paid in blood.”
Lorenzo moved closer.
The proximity produced a different kind of tension now.
“You had a choice in there.”
His voice lowered.
“You could have translated exactly what Russo said.”
Anna looked up.
“You could have let him remove me.”
His eyes held hers.
“Why didn’t you?”
Anna stared back.
“Because you’re a monster, Mr. Moretti.”
Lorenzo’s expression did not change.
“But Russo…”
She shook her head.
“Russo was a butcher.”
Anna’s voice hardened.
“And I am not dying to pay for my father’s sins.”
For the first time, Lorenzo smiled without cruelty.
It was genuine.
The change transformed his face.
He reached toward Anna.
His thumb gently brushed a mark of plaster from her cheekbone.
The touch was unexpectedly careful for a man who had just ordered another man sent back to Italy in a wooden box.
“I made you a promise at the hotel.”
Lorenzo’s voice dropped.
“I told you that if you did exactly what I asked, nobody in the Russo family would ever touch you.”
His eyes remained on hers.
“Vincenzo is dead.”
A pause.
“His family will be too busy fighting over what remains to care about an accountant’s daughter.”
May you like
Anna absorbed the words.
“So I’m free to go.”
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