15. Lorenzo
LORENZO
White glass funded part of what my father built.
Not all of it.
My father preferred the ports.
Cargo. Customs. Containers that arrived with one manifest and left with another. The docks paid for our houses, our soldiers, our influence. Meth was never the main business. It was simply another stream feeding the river.
He was the one who introduced it.
Back then, our laboratory was functional, not exceptional. Good enough to keep buyers loyal and competitors cautious. The product moved. The money came. Nobody complained.
My old man never touched the product himself.
Neither did I.
Men who consume their own merchandise eventually become customers instead of kings.
When he died, I inherited the ports, the routes, the debts, the enemies, and the laboratory.
I expanded the first four and rebuilt the last.
Crude imports. Better equipment. Better processes. Better profits. While others fought over territory, I invested in infrastructure. The laboratory became one of the most profitable divisions discreet in the city, but it never became exceptional.
For years, one reliable scientist handled production. Experienced.
Then Victoria arrived.
Since expanding everything my old man left behind, I find myself holding something that might change the rules entirely.
Victoria does not bring me a miracle.
She brings me a vial.
It rests in Salvatore’s gloved hand, no larger than my thumb, sealed twice and marked with a strip of white tape where she has written the date, time, and batch code in small, neat letters.
The label alone irritates half the men in the room.
My chemists mark the product with numbers. She marks it as though the vial is evidence in a courtroom.
The laboratory is too quiet when I arrive.
Machines hum behind glass.
Ventilation pulls air.
Men pretend to work while watching me from the corners of their eyes. Crates sit unopened along the east wall, waiting for orders. Nobody asks questions, but every man on the lower floor wants the same answer.
Did she do it?
I take the vial from Salvatore.
The crystals inside catch the laboratory lights, pale and clean, without the dull chalkiness I am used to seeing from my own people.
“How much?” I ask.
“Small batch,” Salvatore says. “Barely enough for a serious test.”
“That’s what I ordered.”
His mouth tightens. He has been with me long enough to disagree in silence.
“Say it.”
“She could have done more.”
“She could have ruined more.”
A voice comes from behind the privacy screens.
“I could hear that.”
Several heads turn.
Victoria steps out from the screened section of the lab, tying the belt of her lab coat at her waist. Her hair is pulled back, but a strand has escaped near her cheek.
She looks paler than she did this morning.
Tired. Not weak.
Her eyes go to the vial in my hand.
“You told me to make a test batch,” she says. “I made a test batch.”
“And if I had told you to make a full one?”
“I would have advised against it.”
Mateo, standing near the door, mutters a curse under his breath.
Salvatore stares at the floor.
I look at Victoria.
She does not lower her eyes.
There are men in this room who have killed for less, and she speaks as though she’s disagreeing over a faulty thermostat.
I turn the vial between two fingers.
“You trust it?”
“I trust my work.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
For a moment, the only sound is the ventilation.
Then I almost smirk.
Not because she amuses me. Not entirely. Because she’s learnt to be careful with words, not to be nailed. And haven’t missed a lesson on that.
I slip the vial into the inside pocket of my coat.
“Have the rest of the station cleaned and locked.”
Victoria’s gaze narrows.
“You’re taking it now?”
“The buyer is waiting.”
She removes one glove finger by finger. “Who?”
“Not your concern.”
“It is if he tests it badly.”
“He won’t.”
“You don’t know that. Different kits give different readings depending on contamination, moisture, storage, and the person doing the test.”
Salvatore coughs once into his hand.
I hold Victoria’s stare. “Do you want to come with me and supervise?”
The room stops breathing again.
Her chin lifts a fraction. “No.”
“Then trust your work.”
She shuts her mouth.
I move toward the doors. Matteo falls in behind me. Rocco waits outside the lab, hand near his jacket, his attention on the corridor.
“Lorenzo.”
I stop but do not turn immediately.
Victoria stands beside the steel table, one hand resting on the edge. There is a smear of ink near her thumb. A small detail. It catches my eye more than it should.
“If it passes,” she says, “I want the clinic wing cleared tomorrow. You promised.”
Matteo looks at me.
Salvatore looks anywhere else.
I let a second pass.
“Win first, Professor.”
Her eyes do not move from mine.
“I already did.”
I leave before I can answer.
The hotel rises over the river with polished windows and men at the door who know better than to remember faces. It hosts politicians, bankers, attorneys, and men who pay women to forget their names by sunrise.
The management calls it discreet.
Men goons call it useful.
Neutral ground.
No colours.
No open weapons.
No blood unless the bill has been settled in advance.
The private suite is on the twenty-sixth floor.
A dark wood table surrounded by leather chairs.
Heavy curtains pulled half-open to show the city washed in rain. A chandelier hangs low enough to put light on everything and mercy on nothing.
Marcus Vance is already there when I enter, which means he is worried.
He sits with one ankle crossed over his knee, silver hair combed back, a tumbler of scotch in his right hand.
Ten years older than me, though he looks closer to fifteen.
Five years in Stateville left him leaner than he used to be, but prison did not take the greed out of his face. It only taught him to hide it until money is on the table.
“Don Lorenzo,” he says.
“Marcus.”
His eyes move past me to Rocco and Matteo. Then to the pocket where I keep the vial. He smiles.
“You brought me a taste.”
“I brought you a decision.”
He laughs through his nose. “You always did inherit your father’s manners.”
“My father gave too many things away.”
That dries his smile.
Good.
I sit across from him. Rocco takes the wall behind my right shoulder. Matteo remains near the door. Vance has two men of his own beside the windows. Both keep their hands visible. Both look hungry enough to make poor decisions.
Vance places a silver case on the table and opens it.
Inside is a portable testing kit: reagent ampoules, sealed strips, a small digital scale, and a glass dish wrapped in cloth. His people buy cheap, but Marcus never tests cheap. That is why he is still alive.
I remove the vial and place it on the table.
The crystals roll softly against the glass.
Vance reaches for it.
I place two fingers on the cap before he can lift it.
“Cash first.”
His eyebrows rise. “You don’t trust me?”
“I don’t trust anyone who asks that question.”
For half a second, he considers being offended. Then he snaps his fingers.
One of his men brings a black duffel and sets it beside the table. Matteo opens it, counts the bricks with gloved hands, checks the bands, then looks at me and nods.
I release the vial.
Vance lifts it toward the chandelier. The light breaks through the glass and scatters across his rings.
“Pretty,” he says.
“Test it.”
He unscrews the cap and taps a few grains into the first ampoule. The liquid changes fast. Clear to violet.
Deep.
Clean.
No clouding. No ugly film at the top.
The room quiets in a way men cannot fake.
Vance leans closer.
He runs the second test. Then the scale. Then a third, because his pride cannot accept the first two. His jaw stops moving. The old rhythm in his fingers dies against the table.
The numbers settle.
He stares at them for too long.
“What does it say?” I ask.
He does not answer.
“Marcus.”
His eyes lift to mine, and for the first time all night, he looks less amused than awake.
“Ninety-nine point two.”
One of his men shifts near the window.
Matteo’s gaze stays on Vance.
The rain taps against the glass behind us.
Vance looks back at the vial. “I haven’t seen this in years.”
He takes another test strip, dips it, waits, then swears under his breath.
“This isn’t street clean. This is lab clean.”
“That was the arrangement.”
“No.” His laugh comes out low and dry. “The arrangement was premium. Everybody says premium. Every Albanian mule with a warehouse full of battery stink calls his product premium.” He points at the vial. “This is different.”
I say nothing.
Silence does useful work when men are already selling to themselves.
Vance lifts the glass dish and studies the remaining crystals.
“Ever since the old Chicago supply started moving through other hands, purity went to hell. Everyone cuts before delivery now. Fillers, whatever garbage keeps the weight up. My North Shore buyers complain every week. They still pay, but they complain.”
He looks at me again.
“Why am I getting your best product last?”
“You’re getting it first.”
That lands exactly where I want it.
His greed shows before he can cover it.
“How much do you have?”
“Enough to make you sit up straighter.”
His mouth curves. “I want three times my usual order.”
“No.”
His smile fades. “No?”
“Not at your usual price.”
He leans back. “Here we go.”
I give him the number.
For a moment, Vance only stares.
Then he laughs.
Not because it’s funny.
Because he thinks I’m insane.
“You’re out of your damn mind.”
I stand.
His laughter stops.
“Don,” he says, “sit please.”
I button my coat.
“Buy from the Albanians.”
“Don’t be dramatic.”
“Your words, not mine.”
“Lorenzo.”
I look at Matteo. He picks up the duffel.
Vance slaps his palm flat against the table.
“Fine. Sit please.”
I remain standing.
His face hardens, but his eyes keep drifting to the vial. The problem with showing a starving man a feast is that he can insult the price all he wants. He still smells the food.
“You’re asking three times market,” he says.
“I’m asking three times the price for ten times the leverage.”
“That isn’t how math works.”
“It is when your buyers stop calling anyone else.”