38. Lorenzo #3
The building settles back into the hum of the lights.
I turn to Francesco.
He lifts his chin.
“You kill servants before kings now?”
“I kill traitors before enemies.”
He smiles, but there is blood on his teeth from the hotel.
“And what am I?”
“A warning.”
His eyes harden.
“To who?”
“To every man who thinks my patience is permission.”
He exhales through his nose.
“There it is. The speech.”
I walk toward him.
“No speech.”
I nod to Alessio.
Alessio cuts the tie from Francesco’s wrists.
Francesco looks down at his freed hands, then back at me.
Suspicion enters his face.
I remove my pistol and place it on the table behind Mateo.
Francesco’s eyes follow it.
“You want to beat me first?”
“I want you standing when you die.”
His throat moves once.
He rubs the marks around his wrists.
“You think this is honour?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“Courtesy.”
He laughs.
Then he swings.
He is fast enough to remind me why men once feared his name.
His fist catches my cheek.
Pain bursts through my jaw.
Matteo steps forward, but I lift my hand.
He stops.
Francesco comes again.
I block the next blow and drive my fist into his ribs. He grunts, stumbles, then throws his shoulder into me.
We hit the steel table hard enough to send a water bottle rolling off the edge.
It hits the floor and spins toward the drain.
Francesco grabs for my throat.
I catch his wrist and twist.
He curses in Italian.
I drive him back against the table.
His heel slips in water.
He recovers and headbutts me.
White pain flashes behind my eyes.
He laughs.
“There,” he says, breathing hard. “There you are.”
I wipe blood from my mouth with my thumb.
He comes at me again.
This time, I step inside his reach and hit him in the stomach where Dante struck him earlier.
His body folds.
I bring my elbow down across his back, and he drops to one knee.
He still reaches for me.
I respect that.
Not enough to spare him.
Enough to let him rise.
“Get up,” I say.
He looks at me from the floor.
“Fuck you.”
“Get up.”
He pushes himself upright, his face wet with sweat. His left hand hangs badly, though he tries to hide it.
His chest lifts and falls.
The fight has begun leaving him.
I take my pistol from Mateo.
Francesco sees it and stills.
The room grows quiet.
His eyes flash.
There he is.
The boy beneath the suit.
“You think Victoria will love this version of you?” he asks.
My finger rests against the trigger guard.
He smiles because he thinks he has found the wound.
“She’ll see it one day. The blood. The bodies. The real man. Then she’ll run from you too.”
I step closer.
“You do not get her name.”
His smile fades.
“You do not get to touch it. You do not get to live inside the arranged union built to unite against me. And you do not get to leave one final lie in her life.”
For once, he has no answer.
Rain taps against the roof above us.
I press the barrel to his chest.
His eyes stay on mine.
“Tell me we are the same now,” I say.
He breathes through his mouth.
Nothing.
“Say it.”
His jaw tightens.
Still nothing.
I fire once.
Francesco drops to his knees.
His hands press against his chest, but there is nothing for him to hold in. He looks surprised.
Not by the pain.
By the fact that the world continues without asking his permission.
He falls forward.
The sound is plain.
A body on concrete.
No final deal.
No family name fills the room.
Only Francesco, face turned toward the drain, blood moving slowly beneath him.
I lower the gun.
Mateo comes beside me with a towel.
I take it and wipe my hand.
“Call his underboss,” I say.
Mateo already has the phone out.
“What message?”
I look at Francesco.
Then at Camron under the sheet.
“Tell him Francesco came to kill me and failed. Tell him Camron confessed before he died, and any man who wants revenge can come before sunrise.”
Mateo waits.
“And if they want peace?”
I hand him the towel.
“They send flowers to the hotel for the inconvenience.”
Alessio crosses himself once, then turns away to give orders.
My phone vibrates.
I know who it is before I look.
Hugo.
“Is it done?” he asks.
Behind me, men begin wrapping Francesco and his fallen men.
Camron is already gone beneath plastic.
I turn toward the side door, where rain falls beyond the warehouse light.
“Yes.”
His breathing steadies.
I close my eyes for one second.
“Francesco is dead.”
He says nothing, but I hear the relief in his silence.
“Keep the new business running,” I say.
I look at the gun in my hand.
Then at Francesco.
Then at the men waiting for my next order.
“I will.”
I end the call.
Mateo watches me, phone pressed to his ear, waiting for Francesco’s underboss to answer.
Outside, the SUV engine starts.
The rented sedan leaves first.
Then the van.
Our car waits for me under the covered entrance, clean enough to pass any camera, ordinary enough to be forgotten before evening.
I put on my coat.
Mateo lowers his phone.
“He answered.”
“And?”
“He wants peace.”
I step over the thin trail of water running toward the drain.
“Of course he does.”
I walk toward the door.
“Peace is cheaper when the bill is paid by another man’s blood.”