Lorenzo #3
"Not at first, but then she threatened me."
The room falls silent.
"She said she'd tell everyone, Cesare, her father, everybody." His eyes flick toward Cesare. "She said she'd tell them I'd been sleeping with her since she was fourteen."
My jaw tightens. "You kept sleeping with her?" I ask.
Bruno nods, slowly. He looks utterly defeated. "She owned me after that. Every time I thought it was over, she'd ask for something else. Money, information, favors, names, meeting locations, business details. Anything she wanted.”
"And you kept giving it to her?" My father asks in disgust.
"What choice did I have?"
The second he says that Giovanni takes a step forward. "The choice not to sell out everyone around you."
Bruno doesn't answer.
I hold his gaze. "The peanuts."
His face drains of color. "She contacted me a few weeks ago."
"When?"
"Two weeks ago. She planned it all out, said that it was to be when everyone was at dinner. She wanted everyone to witness it." He winces as I step back a step. "A few weeks before, she said Quinn was becoming a problem. She told me to make it look accidental."
I feel something cold settle inside my chest.
"She said everyone knew about the allergy, she said nobody would question it."
I laugh bitterly. "And you believed her."
Bruno's eyes fill with panic. "I didn't think—"
"That's the fucking problem, Bruno." My voice is quiet. "You didn't think at all."
“Did you know she was pregnant?” I say.
He goes pale. "I swear to God, Lorenzo, I didn't."
It doesn't matter. He poisoned her anyway. My wife was gasping for air on the floor of my house because of him.
I nod once, gathering my thoughts, and Bruno mistakes that for understanding. People always do.
"I never wanted her dead," he says quickly. "Daire said it would be enough to scare her. She said—"
"Daire is a fucking cunt," I snarl and his mouth snaps shut.
I stare at him and then I turn to look at my father.
Bruno follows my gaze, and for the first time since we walked into the room, he looks genuinely afraid.
"Cesare." My father says nothing. "Please, don't." Bruno pleads.
Cesare takes a step forward. "You stood in my home for twenty years."
Bruno's face crumples.
"You watched my children grow up."
"Cesare—"
"You stood beside me when someone tried to dismantle this organization, you pledged your alliance to me, to us." The room goes silent and my father's expression hardens. "And now I find out that you’ve been working against us, betraying us, and you tried to kill my new daughter?"
"I was scared."
My father laughs once, the sound is cold. "No."
Bruno flinches.
"You were greedy." The words land like a slap.
Bruno's eyes dart to me, then to Giovanni, then to Ciro. Looking for someone, anyone, to help him.
I pull my gun from beneath my jacket, Bruno sees it immediately. "No."
I level it at his chest.
"No, Lorenzo. Please."
"Where is Daire?" I ask.
He’s sobbing now, tears falling from his eyes as his legs start to wobble. "I don't know."
"Where is Frederick?" I ask, needing to know where the fuck they are.
"I don't know. Please,” he says. “Please, I helped you, I told you everything.”
“You helped yourself,” I say. “There's a difference.”
I think about Quinn, my wife, and how I almost lost her. God, I can’t go through that again.
I shoot him once, just as I did to Tony, one bullet between his eyes.
It’s clean and final. I step back. Marco’s already on the phone, Ciro’s at the door, making sure we’re not interrupted.
I look at Bruno for a moment. Twenty years, and it cost him everything for the promise of money from a woman who has never kept a promise in her life.
I walk out of the storage unit without glancing back, it’s time to see my wife.
I go straight to her room. She's asleep, the monitors are steadily beeping. There’s no huge mask on her face anymore, the color has come back in her cheeks, and her breathing is even.
The sight of seeing her loosens something in my chest that has been tight for hours.
I sit beside the bed and watch her. For a while, I don't do anything else, except just watch.
I watch her breathe. Watch the rise and fall of her chest. I watch her fingers twitch slightly in her sleep.
She's alive.
I reach for her hand, her skin is warm, her pulse steady beneath my fingers.
For a moment I close my eyes. The last time I saw her she was on the gurney struggling to breathe.
Now she's here and she’s safe.
I open my eyes and look at her again. My wife, the woman I love, the woman carrying my child.
The thought still doesn't feel real.
My child.
A future I didn't know existed this morning. I rest my hand lightly against the blanket covering her stomach.
Protective and possessive.
Mine. Both of them are. The feeling settles deep in my chest.
Daire, Frederick, and Gregory are still out there, and tonight they came for my family.
Bruno paid for his part in that, the rest of them will too.
I look at Quinn, then down at where our child grows beneath my hands, and I make a silent vow.
Nobody is touching either of them again, not while I'm breathing.