Lorenzo #2
Fuck. I can’t believe how close I came to losing them both.
"Oh." Vittoria's voice cuts through the silence.
I turn to look at her and see that her hand is pressed over her mouth.
"Oh God," she gasps.
"What?"
She looks at me and then to my father, before she looks back at me. "It wasn't stress."
My stomach drops. "What wasn't stress?"
"The sickness."
I stare at her. "What sickness?"
Nobody answers immediately, and that tells me everything. Slowly, I look around the group. Valentina won't meet my eyes, Sofia is suddenly very interested in the floor, and even Elisabetta looks uncomfortable.
The rage that has been simmering under my skin starts to rise. "What sickness?" I say through clenched teeth.
Vittoria sighs. "Quinn's been sick for the last couple of weeks."
The corridor goes silent and I blink, trying to comprehend what she’s just said. "What?"
"Mostly mornings," Valentina says quietly.
I turn to her, anger and disbelief coursing through me. "You knew?" It comes out as a rumble.
Her eyes widen. "Lorenzo—"
"You knew?" I say again.
"She asked us not to tell you."
I look at Vittoria. "You knew."
It isn't a question, but Vittoria nods. "She thought it was stress."
I laugh. The sound is sharp and humorless.
I look at my father. Surely, he didn't know. He holds my gaze, and says absolutely nothing.
Fuck.
My jaw tightens. "You all knew."
"Not like that," Vittoria says.
"Really?" I snap. "Because from where I'm standing it looks exactly like that."
"She didn't want anyone telling you. We only found out this morning."
I glare at her. "That doesn't make it okay."
Nobody argues, because nobody can.
For two weeks my wife has been throwing up every morning. For eight weeks she's been carrying our child, and every single person standing here knew something was wrong.
Then another thought hits me, the doctor said the exposure was too significant to be accidental.
Someone deliberately put peanuts in her food.
My blood runs cold.
The allergy was documented. Joe knew, the entire staff knew. Everyone knew. This wasn't carelessness. This wasn't a mistake. This was targeted. And suddenly all I can think about is the fact that somebody didn't just try to kill my wife, they tried to kill my child, too.
I walk away, moving to the end of the corridor, needing to breathe otherwise I'm going to lose my ever-loving shit.
That's where my father finds me ten minutes later. He doesn't say a word, he just hands me his phone. There's a video already loaded. I immediately recognize the kitchen.
I hit play. Joe is at the stove, cooking, the staff around him are doing their jobs as they get ready for dinner. It’s normal and routine. I watch as the staff and Joe bring out the starters and while they’re gone, Bruno walks into frame.
My stomach drops.
He looks around, checks who's watching, and then he reaches into his pocket. The footage doesn't have sound, but it doesn't need it. I watch him unscrew a small jar, add something to the sauce, stir it in, and then he walks away.
My hand tightens around the phone. By the time the video ends, I can hear my pulse pounding in my ears. "He knew,” I say through clenched teeth.
"Son..." my father says quietly.
I look at him. "He knew exactly what he was doing."
Silence spreads between us and I think about Quinn struggling to breathe, about her lying unconscious behind those doors, and I think about the child she doesn't even know she's carrying.
Something dark settles inside me. "Where is he?"
My father studies me for a long moment. "Marco has eyes on him, he’s been detained."
Good.
Because there’s nowhere for Bruno to run. He should have fucking ran, because I'm going to make sure he regrets every decision that brought him to this moment.
I push off the wall and move through the hospital corridor. Bruno is in for a world of hurt.
The storage unit is near the docks, and it's been used for many of our dealings. Today, one of our own is going to die. It’s been a long fucking time coming.
I knew it was him that was working with Daire, I just never had concrete proof.
If I had gone with my gut and killed the bastard as soon as I doubted him, then Quinn wouldn’t be in hospital right now.
Marco opens the door, a grim look on his face. I glance around the unit and see that Bruno is at the far wall, pacing. The second he sees me, he starts talking. "Lorenzo, please. Please just listen to me."
I don't respond. I carry on walking into the room, my father and Ciro right behind me. I see Giovanni standing close to Bruno, ready and waiting for him to do something stupid. He’s dying for the chance to take him out. Gio and Bruno have never gotten along.
Bruno has always been a fucking idiot.
A dangerous idiot. Not because he lacked intelligence, but because he thought he was smarter than everyone around him. Loud and arrogant, he’s always looking for the easy way to get more money, more influence, more importance than he'd earned.
Bruno was my father's trusted man, but that didn't mean any of us liked him.
He stops pacing and stands against the wall, his hands raised, like that’s going to save him. "Lorenzo, I measured it. I swear to God, I measured it," he says, not realizing just how much his words are fueling the anger inside of me.
I keep walking, I really want to smash his head against the wall.
"I knew she'd get sick, but I didn't think—"
I put my hand against the wall beside his head and he goes silent.
For a moment, neither of us speaks. I just stare at him.
Twenty years in my father's household, twenty years sitting at our tables and standing in our meetings, twenty years pretending he was one of us.
And tonight he smiled at my wife while knowing he'd already poisoned her food.
"Why?"
One word, that's all it takes. Bruno breaks immediately, his shoulders sag, his eyes close. "It started years ago," he says quietly. "She was a kid."
I see my father's expression harden, and Giovanni straighten.
Bruno swallows. "Fourteen."
The word hangs in the air, nobody speaks or moves.
"At first I thought it would just go away. That she'd lose interest."
"But she didn't."
He shakes his head. "No, she didn't." A bitter laugh escapes him. "She was smarter than I was."
I don't think that's saying much.
"She started asking questions. About meetings, about business, about things she shouldn't have known."
"And you told her,” my father snaps.