Chapter 2 - “I need a sewing kit,” she said. “And alcohol. High-proof.”
“Bar,” Lorenzo said, gesturing vaguely with his head. “Bathroom cabinet for the kit.”
Elena moved quickly. She sterilized the needle with a lighter and poured vodka over the wound. Lorenzo hissed, jaw clenching so hard a vein rose in his neck, but he did not cry out.
“I have to dig the pellets out before I stitch,” she warned. “This is going to hurt.”
“Just do it,” Lorenzo gritted out, staring at the ceiling. “Talk to me. Distract me.”
Elena used a pair of sterilized tweezers.
“Talk about what?”
“Why you?” Lorenzo asked, his breath hitching as she removed the first pellet. “You’re a waitress, but you handle crisis like a soldier. You recognized potassium chloride by sight. You knew how to drive a getaway car.”
“I told you,” she said, her focus entirely on the blood and torn flesh. “I was a nursing student.”
Lorenzo groaned as she dug for the second pellet.
“Nursing students panic. You didn’t panic at the docks. You drove into a firefight.”
Elena paused. She looked at his face, inches from hers. Pain made him look human. Vulnerable.
“My father,” she whispered, resuming her work. “He was like you.”
Lorenzo’s eyes snapped to hers.
“Who?”
“It doesn’t matter. He’s dead. He died in prison 10 years ago. He was a cleaner. He specialized in making bodies disappear. Chemicals, acids, poisons.”
Lorenzo studied her.
“A cleaner’s daughter.”
“He taught me chemistry instead of nursery rhymes,” Elena said bitterly. “He taught me how to stitch a wound because he couldn’t go to hospitals. I spent my childhood patching him up until the police finally kicked down our door. I changed my name. I wanted a normal life. I wanted to save lives, not end them. That’s why I became a nurse.”
“And yet,” Lorenzo said softly, “here you are. Back in the life.”
“I did it for Isabella,” Elena said, tying off the final stitch.
She taped a gauze pad over the wound.
“And for Lucas.”
She stood, wiping her bloody hands on a towel.
“You’re done. You need antibiotics and rest.”
Lorenzo sat up, testing his arm. It was stiff but patched.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me,” she said, her voice hardening. “You dragged us into this. Now tell me how we get out. Your uncle won’t stop.”
“No,” Lorenzo agreed.
He stood, ignoring the pain, and walked to the window, looking down at the city that wanted him dead.
“Salvatore is making a move because he thinks I’m weak. He thinks I’m grieving.”
“Aren’t you?” Elena asked.
Lorenzo looked at her, his expression unreadable.
“Grief is a luxury. I can’t afford it. Not until everyone involved in my mother’s death is buried.”
He walked to a wall safe hidden behind a painting and entered a code. The safe hissed open. Inside were stacks of cash, passports, and a black ledger.
He removed the ledger.
“My mother kept records,” Lorenzo said. “She didn’t trust the banks. She didn’t trust Salvatore. If he killed her, it wasn’t just for power. It was for this.”
He opened the book. It was filled with codes.
“I can’t read it,” Lorenzo admitted. “It’s a cipher. She used to say, ‘Lorenzo, the key is in the chemistry.’ I never understood what she meant.”
Elena stepped closer and looked at the page: rows of numbers and letters.
C6H12O6. 14 Na. H2SO4. 22B.
Her eyes widened.
“It’s not a random cipher,” she whispered. “These are chemical formulas. Glucose. Sulfuric acid. The numbers correspond to atomic weights and table positions.”
Lorenzo looked at her.
“Can you read it?”
“I think so.”
Elena traced the lines.
“It’s a list of accounts. Offshore accounts. But also names.”
She pointed to a line near the bottom.
“NaCN. Judas. Sodium cyanide.”
She translated.
“And next to it, Judas.”
“Who is Judas?” Lorenzo asked.
“It’s not a who,” Elena said, her finger trembling. “Look at the date next to it. It’s dated 3 days ago. The day she died.”
Lorenzo’s face went pale.
“She knew,” he said. “She knew someone close to her was betraying her.”
“Lorenzo.”
Elena looked up, fear returning to her eyes.
“If Salvatore killed her for this book, and he knows you have it, he won’t just send gunmen next time. He’ll send an army.”
“Let him come.”
Lorenzo closed the book with a snap.
“Now I know what they want, and I know who can decode it. You.”
“Me?”
Elena stepped back.
“No. I patched you up. I got my brother back. We are leaving.”
“You can’t leave.”
Lorenzo stepped into her space.
“You are the key, Elena. You said it yourself. The key is in the chemistry. You’re the only one who can translate my mother’s legacy. Without you, I lose the war. And if I lose, Salvatore will hunt you down anyway just to tie up loose ends.”
He reached out, touching her cheek with his uninjured hand. His thumb brushed away a smudge of dirt.
“Stay,” he said.
It was not a command this time. It was a plea.
“Help me destroy them. And I swear on my mother’s grave, I will give you and your brother a life where you never have to look over your shoulder again.”
Elena looked into his eyes. She saw the monster the city feared, but she also saw the man who had taken a bullet for her. She felt a pull, magnetic and terrifying, toward the danger he represented.
“I need to check on Lucas,” she whispered, breaking the trance.
She turned and fled to the guest room.
Lorenzo watched her go. He knew he was manipulating her. He knew he was dragging her deeper into hell. But he also knew that for the first time since his mother died, he did not feel alone in the dark.
The next morning, the sun rose over a city that felt different. The air was heavy with pending violence. In the penthouse, the mood was tense. Lucas sat at the kitchen island eating cereal and watching cartoons with the volume low. He was resilient, Elena gave him that, but he kept glancing at the door, flinching at sudden noises.
Lorenzo was already dressed in a fresh suit from the safe house wardrobe. His arm was in a sling hidden beneath his jacket. He was on the phone, barking orders in Italian.
Elena sat at the table with the ledger. She had been up all night decoding.
“It’s worse than you thought,” she said as Lorenzo hung up.
“Tell me.”
He sat opposite her and poured black coffee.
“Salvatore isn’t working alone.”
Elena slid a piece of paper across the table.
“Your mother was tracking payments. Large payments going out of the family accounts to a shell company called Ethel Guard. Do you know it?”
“No.”
Lorenzo frowned.
“Never heard of it.”
“I looked it up on the secure browser,” Elena said. “It’s a pharmaceutical holding company. They own St. Jude’s Hospice.”
Lorenzo slammed his fist on the table.
“The hospice where she died.”
“So the owners were in on it.”
“It gets deeper,” Elena continued, her voice dropping. “The payments to Ethel Guard weren’t authorized by your mother. They were authorized by you.”
Lorenzo froze.
“What?”
“Your digital signature is on the transfers.” Elena pointed to the decoded line. “Millions of dollars funneled out of the Moretti accounts into the hospice owner’s pockets.”
“That’s impossible,” Lorenzo hissed. “I never signed those.”
“Someone with your access did,” Elena said. “Someone who has your passwords, your biometrics.”
Lorenzo stood and paced the room. The list of people with that level of access was tiny.
Him.
His mother.
And one other.
The intercom at the front gate buzzed. Lorenzo checked the monitor. A man in a gray suit stood outside, tall and sharp-featured, carrying a briefcase.
“It’s Consigliere Rossi,” Lorenzo said, relaxing slightly. “My lawyer. He’s the only one I trust besides my mother. He must have found out where we are.”
“Are you sure?” Elena asked, clutching the ledger. “Lorenzo, the signature—”
“Rossi has been with the family for 30 years,” Lorenzo said, heading to the door. “He carried me when I was a baby. If I can’t trust him, I’m already dead.”
He unlocked the heavy steel door.
Giovanni Rossi walked in. He looked tired. He saw Lorenzo’s sling and sighed.
“I heard about the docks. You’re making a mess, Lorenzo.”
“They took a kid, Giovanni,” Lorenzo said. “Salvatore crossed the line.”
“Salvatore is an animal,” Rossi agreed, setting his briefcase on the table.
He looked at Elena, then at Lucas.
“And these must be the guests.”
“This is Elena,” Lorenzo said. “She’s helping me go through my mother’s ledger.”
Rossi’s eyes flickered.
It was a microexpression, gone in an instant.
Elena saw it.
Fear.
“The ledger?” Rossi let out a strained laugh. “Isabella’s scribbles? Lorenzo, that book is nonsense. She was confused near the end. The medication made her paranoid.”
“It’s not nonsense,” Elena said, standing her ground. “It’s a chemical cipher. And it shows that someone stole millions using Lorenzo’s signature.”
Rossi stared at Elena. The warmth drained from his face, leaving a cold, calculated mask.
“Is that so?”
He turned to Lorenzo.
“Lorenzo, give me the book. This girl is clearly trying to manipulate you. She’s a stranger, probably working for Salvatore.”
“She saved my life last night,” Lorenzo said, his voice cooling.
He stepped between Rossi and Elena.
“Why are you sweating, Giovanni?”
“I’m not sweating,” Rossi said, reaching into his jacket. “I’m just worried about you. You’re not thinking clearly.”
“Show me your hands,” Lorenzo commanded.
“Lorenzo, be reasonable.”
“Hands!”
Lorenzo drew his gun with his good hand.
Rossi froze. Then a sad smile touched his lips.
“I told Salvatore this wouldn’t work. I told him you were too sharp.”
“You,” Lorenzo whispered, the betrayal hitting him harder than the shotgun pellets. “You forged my signature. You helped kill her.”
“She was going to cut us all off,” Rossi snapped, his facade crumbling. “She wanted to go legitimate, Lorenzo. She was going to donate the fortune to charity, to cleanse the family soul. We built this empire. Me, your father, Salvatore. We weren’t going to let her flush it down the toilet.”
“So you poisoned her,” Elena said, disgust in her voice.
“It was mercy,” Rossi yelled.
He pulled a detonator from his pocket.
“Don’t,” Lorenzo shouted.
“The building is rigged,” Rossi said, smiling, his thumb hovering over the button. “I knew you’d come here. It’s the only safe house not on the main grid. Salvatore is downstairs with the cleanup crew. Give me the ledger, Lorenzo, and I let the girl and the boy go. You stay. We end this like men.”
Lorenzo looked at Elena. She was terrified, holding Lucas tight.
“Deal,” Lorenzo said.
He lowered his gun.
“Let them leave. You get the book. You get me.”
“No,” Elena cried. “Lorenzo, he’s lying.”
“Go, Elena,” Lorenzo said, not looking at her.
He tossed the ledger onto the table.
“Take Lucas. Take the fire escape in the kitchen. Go.”
Rossi nodded toward the door.
“Wise choice.”
Elena hesitated. She looked at the ledger, then at Lorenzo. She grabbed Lucas’s hand and ran for the kitchen.
Lorenzo waited until he heard the back door close.
“Okay, Giovanni,” Lorenzo said, his voice deadly calm. “You have the book. Now explain why I shouldn’t kill you before you press that button.”
“Because,” Rossi sneered, picking up the ledger, “you’re already dead.”
He pressed the button.
Nothing happened.
Rossi pressed it again, frantically.
Lorenzo smirked. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small blinking device.
A signal jammer.
“Elena noticed the unauthorized transfers,” Lorenzo said, stepping forward. “But I noticed something too. When you walked in, your phone didn’t connect to the Wi-Fi. You were blocking signals. So I turned on my jammer. I figured if you were blocking communications, either you didn’t want anyone listening, or you were trying to trigger a remote signal.”
Rossi’s face went gray. He dropped the detonator and lunged for his gun.
Lorenzo fired once. The bullet caught Rossi in the knee. He screamed and collapsed.
Lorenzo walked over and kicked the gun away. He stood over the man who had been a second father to him.
“You’re right, Giovanni,” Lorenzo said, aiming the gun at Rossi’s heart. “Isabella wanted to cleanse the family soul. I think I’ll start with the trash.”
He fired.
Lorenzo stood in the silence of the room.
The traitor was dead.
But the war was not over.
Salvatore was downstairs.
The kitchen door burst open. Lorenzo spun around, gun raised.
It was Elena.
She was breathless.
“I didn’t leave,” she said.
“I told you to go,” Lorenzo shouted.
“Lucas is in the stairwell,” she said. “But I came back because I remembered something about Ethel Guard.”
“What?”
“It’s highly flammable,” Elena said, her eyes blazing. “And Rossi said Salvatore is downstairs in the lobby.”
“Yes.”
“The building’s ventilation system.” Elena pointed to the vent on the wall. “If Rossi rigged the building with explosives, he likely used C4 or Semtex. But if we use the cleaning supplies under the sink, ammonia and bleach, we can create chloramine gas. We can pump it into the ventilation shaft.”
Lorenzo stared at her.
A slow smile spread across his face.
“You really are your father’s daughter.”
“Let’s smoke them out,” Elena said.
The penthouse kitchen became a makeshift laboratory. Elena moved with frantic precision, grabbing bottles of industrial-strength bleach and ammonia cleaner from under the sink.
“We need masks,” she said, her voice tight. “Anything to filter the air?”
“Wet towels.”
“Now.”
Lorenzo grabbed designer hand towels from the bathroom and soaked them in the sink. He handed one to Elena and kept one for himself.
“How long do we have?” Lorenzo asked, watching her pour the thick yellow bleach into a metal bucket.
“Once I mix the ammonia, the reaction is instant,” Elena said, her eyes already stinging from the fumes. “Chloramine gas. It burns the eyes, throat, and lungs. In high concentrations, it’s fatal within minutes. It’s heavy. It will sink through the vents straight to the lobby.”
Lorenzo moved to the main ventilation shaft in the hallway and ripped the decorative grate off the wall. The large HVAC fans hummed deep within the building.
“Salvatore brought 20 men,” Lorenzo said, checking his gun. “He wants a siege.”
“Then let’s give him one.”
Elena carried the buckets, her face wrapped in the wet towel.
“Ready?”
“Do it.”
She poured the ammonia into the bleach. Instantly, a thick, white, acrid fog billowed upward. Elena choked, stumbling back as Lorenzo kicked the buckets into the open shaft. The massive intake fans sucked the poisonous cloud downward with a hungry whoosh.
They slammed the utility closet door and sealed the cracks with more wet towels.
Then they waited.
30 seconds passed in agonizing silence.
Then the sounds began echoing up through the pipes.
Coughing. Wet, hacking coughs that turned into retching.
Then screams.
Gunfire erupted below, blind and panicked, as Salvatore’s men fired at an enemy they could not see, an enemy they were breathing in.
“Now,” Lorenzo said, grabbing Elena’s hand. “Get Lucas from the stairwell. We take the service stairs down to the garage. Move.”
They sprinted into the concrete stairwell. Lucas was curled in a corner on the landing below, hands over his ears. Elena grabbed him, wrapping a wet towel around his face.
“Don’t breathe through your nose, Lucas. Mouth only. Shallow breaths.”
They descended into hell.
The service stairwell was not airtight. Wisps of white gas curled around the banisters. By the 10th floor, their eyes were watering uncontrollably. By the 5th floor, Lucas was wheezing.
May you like
They burst out onto the ground-floor level near the rear service exit. The main lobby, visible through glass doors 50 feet away, was a war zone of yellow fog. Bodies writhed on the marble floor.
But the back exit was not clear.
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