29. Lorenzo
LORENZO
The room doesn’t recover from Victoria’s words.
Elsie is mine.
My daughter stands only a few feet away in a yellow jumper, her little hand twisted in Victoria’s blouse, her eyes darting between the adults. She knows something is wrong, even if she doesn’t understand what.
There are things a man prepares for.
Betrayal.
Death.
War.
A knife in the back from someone who once kissed his hand.
But not this.
Not a child with my blood in her veins staring back at me from the arms of the woman I’ve spent weeks trying not to break.
My throat tightens before I can stop it.
And then the world explodes.
The window shatters inward before I hear the shot.
A sniper round tears through the glass and slams into Mrs. Abena’s forearm. She gasps and stumbles against the bottom of the staircase, blood blooming across the sleeve of her grey house dress. A second later, the crack of the rifle punches through the house.
Then, automatic gunfire erupts from the tree line.
A brutal, deafening spray that tears through the wooden siding like paper.
Outside, two heavy bodies hit the porch.
Tomaso and Enzo don’t even have time to scream.
I hear the sick, wet choke of blood in their throats as bullets tear through them. Their bodies slam onto the wooden planks and then everything dissolves into gunfire, dust, and splintering wood.
“Sniper!” I bark. “South wing! Get the fuck down!”
My body moves before my brain catches up.
I don’t think about Olivia. Or the lies. Or the years that were stolen from me.
I see one thing.
The yellow jumper.
I launch myself across the floor, sliding through broken glass, and hook my arm around Elsie’s waist. I drag her down with me and pin her beneath my body near the base of the sofa, covering her from head to toe with my frame.
She lets out a terrified scream and claws at my shirt, crying so hard her little body shakes.
To my left, Victoria hits the floor and throws herself over Olivia, who’s frozen on her stomach with her hands over her ears, screaming into the rug.
Victoria looks at me through the dust and splinters.
Her face is stripped bare with shock as she watches me shield her daughter with my body.
She’s seen me angry. Seen me cruel. Seen what I become when I want to hurt someone.
But she’s never seen me move like this.
Not for territory.
Not for money.
Not for revenge.
For a child.
Heavy boots pound over the gravel outside, getting closer.
“Abena!” I shout.
She’s already moving.
Bleeding, one hand clamped to her arm, she drops to her knees and crawls behind the thick oak frame of the staircase. She knows this house. Knows where the walls are strongest. She disappears into the shadow of the hallway where the windows can’t reach her.
The living room is a fucking kill zone.
Rifle fire shifts outside, methodical and vicious, chewing through what’s left of the glass. A stray round punches through the front door, zips past my ear, and slices across the right side of my neck.
White-hot pain rips through me.
Blood pours down my collar instantly, hot and thick.
The bastard missed my carotid by less than an inch.
“Fuck.”
I yank my Beretta free with one hand and clamp the other over my neck. Blood pushes through my fingers, slick and warm, but I don’t waste a second looking at it.
I look at the window blind.
Heavy canvas. Half hanging. One cord left.
I lift the Beretta, aim at the bracket, and fire once.
The metal snaps.
The blind drops hard, cutting off the sniper’s line of sight and throwing the front of the room into dusty shadow.
“This way!” Mrs. Abena shouts from the back hall. “Please, this way!”
“Go!” I snap at Victoria.
Olivia doesn’t wait. She scrambles on her hands and knees toward the kitchen, sobbing so hard she can barely breathe.
Victoria follows, but she stops beside the sofa and drops low, both arms reaching for me.
Her eyes are wild.
“Give her to me! Lorenzo, give her to me!”
I slide Elsie across the floor, keeping her low beneath the windowsill until Victoria’s hands catch the yellow jumper.
Victoria hauls our daughter into her chest and backs toward the kitchen, shielding Elsie’s head with her body.
More rounds punch through the canvas blind, spraying splinters across my back.
“The keys!” Olivia cries from the hallway, voice thin with panic. “Abena, where are the fucking keys?”
“The counter!” Mrs. Abena shouts back. “By the front door! The garage connects through the pantry!”
Fuck.
The counter is only a few feet away, but it’s fully exposed.
I don’t think about the blood running down my throat.
I dig my boots into the floor and throw myself forward, sliding flat across the hardwood.
A round blasts through the doorframe right where my head was a second earlier.
Wood shards slice into my cheek. I ignore it.
My fingers catch the brass key ring on the edge of the counter.
I grab it, roll onto my side, and hurl it down the hallway.
The keys skid across the floor and stop at Victoria’s feet.
She’s standing by the pantry door with Elsie clutched to her shoulder, chest heaving, eyes locked on the blood soaking my hand.
For one second, she just stares at me like she wants to say something and can’t get the words out.
“Get in the fucking car,” I growl. “Move.”
She bites her lip, nods once, and disappears through the pantry door.
It slams shut behind her.
The house goes eerily quiet.
No gunfire.
No shouting.
Just boots on the porch.
Two men.
The wood creaks under their weight as they move beneath the overhang. The sniper has stopped firing. They don’t want to hit their own men on entry.
I push to my feet and flatten myself against the wall beside the front door, standing in the dead angle behind the hinge.
Blood covers my left hand, but the bleeding at my neck has slowed enough to keep moving.
I grip the Beretta with both hands and wait.
The brass handle turns.
Slowly.
Quietly.
The door opens inward.
The first man steps through with his rifle raised, scanning the darkened living room.
He never checks behind the door.
I grab the collar of his tactical vest and rip him backwards into the alcove.
“What the?—”
Before the second man outside can react, I level the Beretta at the centre of the door and fire three times through the wooden door.
Bang.
Bang.
Bang.
Wood splinters apart.
A wet grunt sounds from the porch, followed by the heavy tumble of a body rolling down the steps.
The man in my grip swings his rifle toward my ribs, but I’m already inside his reach.
I smash the butt of the Beretta into his temple.
Bone cracks.
His eyes roll back. His knees buckle.
I don’t let him fall.
I hook an arm under his vest and drag his half-conscious body in front of mine like a shield, just as the sniper fires again.
The round punches through the wall and buries itself in the middle of the bastard’s back.
His body jerks violently against me, absorbing the shot meant for my spine.
“Shoot your own men, you dumb fucks,” I mutter.
Two more rounds hit him before I use his weight to throw myself across the hallway and roll into the protected shadow of the kitchen.
Then I hear it.
The low mechanical rumble under the floorboards.
An engine turning over in the garage.
Victoria made it.
Elsie made it.
My daughter is in that car.
I tear a strip from my shirt and knot it tight around my neck, forcing pressure onto the wound.
Blood still seeps through the fabric, but it’ll hold long enough.
I tighten my grip on the Beretta and charge toward the sound of the car engine.