Chapter Four
Lorenzo
“FUCK.” I grab the table and flip it. Wood and papers scream across the room.
I want everything to break. I want the world to fracture until all the pieces spell her name and only hers.
I can’t scrub her from my mind. I didn’t want to go to that funeral.
I pulled the trigger. I killed him. Still, I went because she was there, because she has been avoiding me since the day I lost her and my mind with her.
“FUCK. FUCK. FUCK.” The sound tears out of me until the last shard of the office is gone.
“You do realize that’s not your fucking furniture, right?” Lev says mildly, like he’s commenting on the weather. His gaze drags over me, curious, entertained. “I understand heartbreak. Tragic. Devastating. Very cinematic. I can even spoon-feed you ice cream and pat your head while you spiral.”
He tilts his head, smiling, sharp, wrong.
“But if you snap that table, I will mourn it longer than your relationship. I get attached. I have standards. And that table has never disappointed me.”
If I had a hand free, I would put it through his perfect face.
Lev chuckles at my glare and pours himself a measure of something strong. His voice is casual and dangerous. “Successful therapy aside, we need to deal with the mess.”
“There’s no mess,” I snap. “We dealt with the mess. He’s dead. It was an accident. Job done.”
Lev shrugs, amused. “Yeah, I saw the body. Ugly as fuck, by the way.” He raises the glass to his lips. “But I meant the Organization. What if they come at us?”
I already know the stakes. I killed a man with enemies. Killing him was simple. Living with the fallout is the problem. My phone vibrates like an insect against the wood, Dante calling again. I reject it. Again.
Andres appears in the doorway like a shadow that smokes. He drags the cigarette between two fingers, the smoke curling lazy and dangerous. He never rushes. He never needs to. When he speaks, it lands.
“Don’t worry, ladies. I got you protected,” he says, the cigarette a punctuation point at the corner of his mouth.
“You can’t smoke here, idiot,” Lev snaps, but he’s smiling.
“Why?” Andres replies, arching an eyebrow. “You pregnant or something?”
Lev snorted a laugh, the kind that made sanity pack a bag and leave town.
“You know what’d really crack me up?” he said, eyes lit like a blown fuse. “Mounting your head above my fireplace with a pear jammed in the mouth. Very Roman. Very educational.”
“No one’s coming after us,” I say, more to convince myself than them. My hand rubs at the bridge of my nose, at the place where the grief and the fury knot together. My caller ID flashes again. Dante. Reject. Again.
“Well, maybe someone might be after us,” I say and let the possibility hang like a challenge.
Both of them lift their brows.
“Luciano?” Andres asks, voice flat, like he’s naming a mosquito. He’s thinking two moves ahead, as always.
“I thought Ice was dealing with him,” Lev says, bored, like this is a small inconvenience rather than a threat. Lev's boredom is the most dangerous thing of all. When he is bored, he invents cruelty for sport.
“He is,” Kirill says, stepping into the room. “But apparently he wants to speak to you.”
“Thanks for the offer, but I will gladly pass.” I say it through a mouthful of bone-deep irritation. I dial her again from a different number. Of course she has blocked me. Of course. I throw the phone against the wall. It cracks. It’s the fifth one I’ve destroyed in as many days.
“Calm down, Lorenzo,” Kirill says, the voice of ice and reason. “I know she’ll be fine. But we need to handle bigger problems now.”
Bigger problems. The sky could split open and the world could crumble to dust, and I would not care. None of it would matter as long as she is not within my reach, not here with me where I can keep her safe.
“What do we actually know about the Organization?” Kirill asks Andres, folding his hands like a man who wants facts, not melodrama.
“As far as we could pull from the phones when they were captured,” Andres answers, slow and flat, “it’s human trafficking. Thomas and John were involved. From what I hacked out of Thomas’ messages and records; they ran auctions. Girls sold to the highest bidder.”
The word auction tastes like bile. My jaw tightens.
“And worse,” Andres goes on, and his voice stays clinical, “they staged hunting games. Send women into the woods, wounded, terrified, and hunt them with bows, knives, swords. The old man recorded himself doing it.”
Lev’s face twists into something like amusement and contempt. “I saw that video,” he says. “Wish I’d seen it before. I would have shown him how real men play.” His laugh is manic and low. The pleasure in his cruelty sits like a promise in the room and I don’t flinch. I let it land.
“How do we know they’re not after us?” Kirill asks next.
“No suspicious movement detected,” Andres says. “I doubled security. My team swept all cameras. Nothing out of the ordinary. For now.”
“Do they know how they were killed?” Kirill presses.
“Probably. Probably not,” I say. I keep my voice neutral, because neutral is the lie that keeps panic from fracturing into chaos. “I cleaned the scene. I made the accident clean. He was smashed like a mashed potato, beyond recognition. No body to examine, no simple thread to pull.”
Lev snorts. “Ew. I’m never eating mashed potatoes again because of you.” He grins, ridiculous and poisonous.
Kirill turns his face to mine. He’s steady in a way that keeps the rest of the room tethered. “Ice is trying to sort Luciano out, but Luciano will only speak to you. I already sent a team to Serena’s house. I saw your guys there. Mine are with them. She’s protected.”
He puts a hand on my shoulder. It is meant to be comforting. It is meant to remind me that I am not alone in this. It does not help.
“We are walking on eggshells,” Kirill says. “I am confident the Organization won’t come after us openly. I am more worried about Luciano.”
“Okay.” I say the word because it is what I am supposed to say.
Lie to them and then move. I will look into it.
I will do what needs doing. But the truth, sharp, hot and plain, is that I am not going to sift through war plans and alliances while she is ignoring me.
I cannot reach. I need movement. I need proof she is safe and sound.
Andres watches me, cigarette embers glowing in the dim light.
He does not waste breath on sympathy. He never does.
He gives me the facts. Lev is already imagining the screams this will buy him.
Kirill wants order. I want her back. The need sits under my skin like poison, spreading through every thought until nothing else survives.
They sit at what is left of the table while I check the security cameras I installed at the Beaumont Mansion.
All the feeds are empty. No movement. No shadow passing by.
No door opening. Nothing. I installed those cameras after she ran from the funeral, thinking at least I would know she made it home.
But there is no sign of her. I do not know if she is locked inside the house or if she never went home at all.
I cannot go there myself. She already hates me.
My presence would only make things worse.
“Lev,” I say, the irritation clear in my voice.
“What?” he answers, bored, as if I am interrupting something important.
“Give me Clara’s number.”
He looks at me with annoyance. “Moving on fast, aren’t you?” he says with a smirk that looks more angry than amused.
“For fuck’s sake, just give it to me.”
“No.” He gets up to leave but I grab him by the arm.
“Then ask her if Serena is at home. I need one of her friends to tell me something. Sienna is a psychopath and she hates me. She would rather move Serena to another continent than help me.”
He thinks for a moment, eyes drifting to the floor.
“Fine. But do not involve Clara anymore. She is done with all this.”
“You asked her to join us that night. Not me,” I remind him. He cannot blame me for his employee’s trauma. That was his idea.
“I said fine. I will ask her.” He growls and leaves the room.
The others stay, talking about shipments, Italians, Colombians and the cursed Organization. I wanted to drown in my own misery but instead I am drowning in mafia politics. Perfect.
I take my phone and text Dante.
ME: Meet me tomorrow at 8 PM.
Dante: I thought I had to send a pigeon with a letter since you weren’t answering your phone.
Dante: But can’t.
ME: Why? It’s your bedtime?
Dante: Because I’m the underboss now. I have more shit to deal with. I’ll come around 10 PM if I can.
ME: Sorry I can’t, 10 PM is my bedtime.
I almost laugh. I have become unrecognizable since her. She has turned me into something I am not, something I barely understand.
Dante: Lorenzo.
ME: Dante.
Dante: For fuck’s sake. I’ll be there at 8 PM.
I put the phone away. Lev is long gone and I know damn well he will not help me with Clara. I still need her number. Kirill already left for dinner. Andres is the only one left.
“Andres,” I call.
He turns slowly. “What now?”
“I need a favor.”
“Well? Are you going to say it or should I start guessing?” He sounds annoyed. Everyone is on edge.
“I need Clara’s phone number.”
He bursts out laughing. “You guys are predictable. Lev already warned me not to give you Clara’s number. Apparently, he will have my head if I do.”
So the bastard lied.
Andres sighs deeply. “I cannot deal with all this drama. You two need to get your shit together. Especially you, Lorenzo.” He shakes his head but hands me the number anyway.
He leaves. I call Clara. No answer.
I text her.
ME: How is Serena?
She reads the message.
And nothing.
She leaves me on read.