Chapter 3 - The Penthouse Above the Shadows
The Queensboro Bridge blurred past the tinted windows like a smear of yellow
light and black water.
Rain pounded the roof of the armored truck with deafening fury.
Inside, the air smelled of gun oil, rain, and raw adrenaline.
My fingers dug into the leather upholstery until my knuckles turned white.
Six miles.
Six miles separated me from my sick, helpless little boy.
"How do you know about Marcus?" I demanded, fighting through the panic choking
my throat.
"Tell me the truth, Lorenzo! What did Marcus do?"
Lorenzo kept his gaze fixed on the storm outside as the Escalade weaved through
midnight traffic.
"Marcus Dawson was an accountant for Salvatore Vance," Lorenzo began, his voice
flat and deadly.
"Vance is an animal who runs the northern docks, human trafficking, and
synthetic fentanyl."
"Marcus laundered money through three fake shell companies in Queens."
"Five years ago, Marcus realized Vance was going to execute him once the books
were clean."
"So he faked the car crash," I whispered, bile rising into my mouth.
"The closed-casket funeral... the burnt chassis in the river..."
"All paid for by Vance’s stolen cash," Lorenzo said coldly.
"Marcus took twelve million dollars and fled to Costa Rica under an assumed
identity."
"He left behind his twenty-four-year-old wife and a two-year-old boy with
asthma."
Lorenzo turned his head, his eyes burning with disgust.
"He left you to starve, Clara. He left you with his personal debts so Vance’s
wolves would sniff around your apartment and assume the money was gone forever."
Tears leaked from my eyes, hot and bitter.
Four years.
Four years of eating dry toast so Leo could have milk.
Four years of scrubbing floors until my knees bled.
Four years of grieving a man who had intentionally fed his own family to the
wolves.
"And you?" I asked, my voice trembling with anger.
"Where do you fit into this nightmare?"
"Marcus didn't just steal from Vance," Lorenzo said quietly.
"He stole from me."
"Three million of those twelve million belonged to the Moretti family."
The cabin suddenly felt suffocatingly small.
I pulled back against the door, staring at him in horror.
"Then why aren't you killing me?" I gasped.
"Why aren't you taking Leo to get your money back?"
Lorenzo let out a low, humorless chuckle.
He set the heavy pistol down on his lap and leaned closer to me.
"If I wanted your blood, Clara, you would have disappeared from Queens three
years ago."
He raised a hand, his calloused thumb gently wiping away a tear running down my
cheek.
His touch was shockingly gentle, sending a strange jolt of electricity through
my skin.
"I tracked you down eighteen months ago," Lorenzo confessed.
"I stood across the street from your grocery store in the freezing winter."
"I watched you count out nickels and pennies to buy cough syrup for Leo."
"I watched you give your last sandwich to a stray dog on the corner of 39th
Avenue."
His voice dropped to an intimate, aching whisper.
"I realized the woman who married that snake was an angel who got dragged into
hell."
"I wrote off the debt. I erased your name from my syndicate’s ledger."
My heart skipped a beat.
"You knew who I was... before you walked into The Gilded Spoon tonight?"
"I knew," Lorenzo admitted.
"Tonight was my birthday. Vance launched a quiet offensive on two of my
warehouses in Brooklyn at five p.m."
"I was angry. I was empty. I wanted to see if there was any true goodness left
in this filthy city."
"I walked into your restaurant soaked to the bone, fully prepared to let the
world prove to me that everyone is rotten."
He looked down at the plastic triceratops resting between us.
"And you proved me wrong."
“Two minutes out!” the driver shouted from the front seat.
“We have visual on the street! Smoke coming from the fourth-floor windows!”
My heart violently seized.
"Smoke?!" I shrieked.
"Leo!"
Lorenzo picked up his gun and racked the slide back again.
His face hardened into a mask of pure slaughter.
"Dante," he barked into the radio.
"Authorize lethal force. Wipe them out."
The Escalade swung violently onto 44th Street, tires screaming against wet
asphalt.
Through the rain-streaked windshield, a scene of pure chaos unfolded.
Two black tactical vans were parked haphazardly across the curb of my apartment
building.
Red and blue muzzle flashes illuminated the dark brick alleyways.
The sound of rapid gunfire hammered through the night air like thunderclaps.
"Leo!" I screamed, grabbing the door handle.
"Stay down!" Lorenzo roared, grabbing me by the waist and pulling me to the
floor of the vehicle.
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
Three high-caliber rounds slammed into the bulletproof glass of our rear window,
spiderwebbing the surface into milky white fractures.
The Escalade violently rammed the side of the first enemy van, tearing metal and
sending glass spraying into the rain.
The vehicle lurched to a halt.
Lorenzo kicked open his door.
"Dante! Cover her!"
Lorenzo stepped out into the storm with his weapon drawn.
He fired three rapid shots into the shadows.
A man in a black tactical vest collapsed onto the pavement with a sickening
thud.
Dante pulled me out from the back seat, shielding my body with his massive
frame.
"Move! Toward the entrance!"
The front doors of my apartment building were blown off their hinges.
Acrid black smoke poured from the interior lobby.
Above us, on the sixth floor, I heard a sound that made my soul rip apart.
A child’s scream.
“MOMMY!”
May you like
"LEO!" I shrieked, breaking free from Dante’s grip.
I sprinted straight into the burning, smoking stairwell.
