Chapter 4 - THE DORMITORY FLOOR
The armored Cadillac tore through the snowy avenues of Evanston at ninety miles per hour.
Tires screamed against the slush.
Lorenzo sat in the rear, holding Amelia against his side.
He had not let her go since the alley.
Her body was still trembling, shivering from deep inside her bones.
He pulled a thermal flask from the door console and offered it to her lips.
“Drink,” he commanded gently.
“Hot broth.”
She took two sips, coughing as the heat hit her starved throat.
“I tried to call her, Enzo,” Amelia wept.
“Every day.”
“Victor monitored her phone.”
“If I sent a single text, he was going to cut her brake lines.”
“Hush,” Lorenzo murmured.
His hand stroked her snow-damp hair.
“You saved her life, Amelia.”
“You did what no soldier in my family had the courage to do.”
“You took the fire for her.”
The car swerved hard into the circular drive of Oak Ridge University.
The grand brick dormitory loomed through the blizzard.
The campus was deserted, shut down by the severe winter storm warning.
Outside the entrance of Hall Seven, a black utility van sat with its hazard lights blinking.
The driver’s door hung open.
Footprints led through the fresh snow toward the double glass doors of the lobby.
The glass doors were shattered.
Lorenzo kicked his door open before the Cadillac completely stopped.
He drew his Kimber .45 from beneath his arm.
“Marco, stay with Amelia,” Lorenzo ordered.
“Enzo, no!” Amelia reached for his sleeve, her fingers catching the cuff of his shirt.
“Don't go alone!”
Lorenzo looked back at her.
The fierce, terrifying predator in his eyes softened for a fraction of a second.
“Nobody touches my blood, Amelia.”
“And nobody touches what is mine.”
He stepped out into the gale.
Leo and four armed guards followed him into the ruined lobby.
The interior smelled of copper and cordite.
The security guard behind the desk was slumped forward, zip-tied to his swivel chair, unconscious with a bloody wound on his temple.
Lorenzo checked the guard’s neck.
A faint pulse.
He was alive.
They took the concrete stairs three at a time.
Third floor.
Room 312.
The heavy oak door was splintered down the center, hanging from a single broken brass hinge.
Lorenzo raised his weapon and breached the room.
The small student apartment was trashed.
Books were scattered across the linoleum.
A broken study lamp flickered on the desk.
On the floor lay two of Lorenzo’s men.
Shot through the chest.
Dead.
On the small single bed sat a white cardboard box tied with a crimson silk ribbon.
The same crimson ribbon that had decorated the wedding programs at Holy Name Cathedral.
Lorenzo lowered his gun.
His boots clicked softly against the broken glass on the floor.
He stepped to the bed.
He cut the ribbon with his pocketknife and lifted the lid.
Inside lay a pair of small pearl earrings.
Mia’s eighteenth birthday present from Lorenzo.
Beneath the earrings lay a handwritten note written on heavy cream stationery:
“You found the bride, Lorenzo.
Now come find your sister.
The South Pier.
Six o'clock.
Come alone, or Mia swims with the ice.”
Behind him in the hallway, a floorboard creaked.
Lorenzo spun on his heel, raising his gun.
Standing in the shattered doorway was Amelia.
She had slipped past Marco.
Her face went completely white as she saw the dead guards on the floor.
Then her eyes locked onto the pearl earrings in the box.
“Oh God,” she choked out, her hands flying to her mouth.
“He has her at the docks.”
Suddenly, the floor beneath their feet shuddered.
A low, mechanical beep echoed from the closet across from the bed.
May you like
A digital timer was mounted to four blocks of yellow plastic explosive strapped to the radiator pipes.
The red numbers read: 00:05.
