56. Chapter 48
Lorenzo
In the two weeks after I cruelly put an end to things with Dash, I go numb.
And in that numbness, I learn just how good I am at operating on autopilot.
I attend meetings, make decisions, handle all the daily obligations of my family’s criminal empire with complete competence.
All while feeling nothing underneath it.
And plotting my brother’s downfall.
There have been no new fires. For two weeks, Giovanni has done nothing but work as our Family’s Don. If he really is guilty of the fires—and I firmly believe he is—he’s doing a good job of not drawing suspicion to himself.
But I don’t need another fire. I already have enough to know the truth. I have the Saturn shell company. I have the timing of it all. I have Giovanni’s ambition. I have the fact that I know Giovanni, and I know exactly what he’s capable of.
Around the ninth day after I end things with Dash, I stop holding out for absolute proof. Instead, I spend the next five days building a plan.
This man building the plan, this version of myself, I hardly recognize him. I’ve made my peace with that. I have become the darkest, rawest, and maybe the most honest, version of myself in this quest for vengeance.
I will destroy my brother, even if it destroys me.
Finally, the night comes for Family Dinner. I dress in my usual dark suit, white shirt, black tie. I have my armor back tonight. And I intend to keep it on until Giovanni is no longer breathing.
My plan is simple. I don’t want any drama, no confrontations played out in front of witnesses. That could only lead to more casualties and more problems.
I trust only two men to help me: Carlo Belmonte and Wolfe. I don’t tell them all the details. Just that I’m finally doing what I should’ve done as soon as Father died. I think they know what I mean—they’ve seen the darkness in me.
They’ve agreed to wait near the service entrance at Giovanni’s house.
Once dinner concludes, once my mother retires for the evening and the staff have cleared out for the night, I’ll get Giovanni alone under the pretense of discussing family business.
Something that requires privacy, something he won’t suspect as being out of the ordinary.
Wolfe and Carlo will handle what comes after that.
Even I can’t bring myself to get my brother’s blood on my own hands.
It’ll be quick and it’ll be quiet. There won’t be any mess. Nothing that needs to be cleaned up. And no body that anyone will ever recover.
Deep inside me, I know that this makes me no better than Giovanni. He killed our father. I’m killing him. The motives might be different, but it’s still blood going after blood.
If it damns my soul, I’ll accept the damnation.
Giovanni’s house, all glass and concrete, looks beautiful and terrible when I arrive.
“Are you sure about this?” Wolfe asks one last time as I get out of the car.
I nod.
He doesn’t look reassured. I know he thinks I’m about to do something he can’t protect me from. He’s right. I’ll be beyond saving after this.
“Carlo’s meeting you at the service entrance in twenty minutes. Once dinner’s done, once the staff is cleared, then we move.”
“Understood.” He doesn’t look happy about my decision, but he doesn’t question it. “If you need anything when you’re in there, signal.”
“I will, my friend. I will.”
I walk up the wide stone steps to Giovanni’s front door, knock once, and wait.
To my surprise, Giovanni himself answers the door. No staff in sight.
“Lorenzo,” he says warmly, holding his arms out for an embrace. “Come in. It’s just the three of us tonight—Mother’s already here.”
“Carlo’s not joining us?” I ask, feigning surprise. Of course, I know exactly where Carlo is.
“Carlo sends his regrets. Something came up.”
“What a shame,” I say. “I’ll check on him after dinner.”
“I’m sure he’ll appreciate that. Come in.” He leads me through the foyer, into the great room with its two-story windows facing the bay, the dark water down there catching the last gray light of the evening. He crosses to a bar cart near the gas-fed hearth. “Whiskey?”
“Please.”
He pours two glasses, hands me mine, and raises his. “To family.”
“To family,” I echo, and drink. “Where’s Mother?”
Giovanni smiles. “In the gallery. Come. There’s something I want to show you before dinner. I’ve been dying to get your thoughts on it.”
He leads me down a cool hallway to a room I haven’t seen before: a large private art gallery with white walls and white floors, spotlit, with a single bronze piece the size of a car positioned in the center of the space.
Mother is already there, standing near the far wall, wearing all black and holding a glass of red wine. Her face is unreadable as she stares at the slabs of bronze that twist into…something. I’m not sure what.
“Mother.” I go to embrace her. She’s stiffer in my arms than normal. “Is everything all right?”
“Lorenzo, darling. Yes.”
Things have been tense between us since I told her I suspected Giovanni and she told me not to. I think I lost a little respect for her, then. That lost respect won’t compare to the respect she’ll lose for me now that I’ve arranged the death of my brother.
“So,” Giovanni says. “What do you think?” He gestures proudly to the sculpture. I see now that it’s two bronze figures, men, locked in a violent struggle.
“It’s…something. What does it represent?”
“Saturn and Jupiter,” Giovanni says.
Something cold settles in my chest.
“You know the story, of course, don’t you?” Giovanni says. “Father would read it to us when we were little.”
“I remember.”
“Well, humor me.” He circles the sculpture, one hand trailing along the cool bronze.
“Saturn—he was the greatest of the Titans. His father, Caelus, ruled with such tyranny that Saturn eventually rose up and overthrew him. Then, terrified that history would repeat itself, terrified that one of his children would do to him what he did to his father, he ate them. Swallowed them whole, one after another, making sure that none of them would grow up strong enough to ever, ever defeat him.”
“Giovanni…”
“His wife hid the youngest,” he continues, unbothered by my interruption, his voice taking on the cadence of someone who’s rehearsed this particular speech in private.
“She gave Saturn a stone wrapped in cloths instead of a baby. Saturn, with all his hunger and his fear, didn’t notice the difference.
Fool. The child, Jupiter, grew up in secret.
He grew strong. And when the time came, Jupiter rose up against his father and did what none of his siblings had the chance to do.
He fought his father. He freed his brothers and sisters from Saturn’s belly, and cast his father down into the deepest pit.
Finally, he took what should’ve been his from the beginning. The throne of the heavens.”
The gallery has gone completely silent. My mother doesn’t move from her spot by the wall.
“I’ve always thought it was a beautiful story, don’t you?” Giovanni says softly.
“It’s a myth about patricide,” I hiss.
“No. It’s about justice. About inevitability.
About what a son is owed, when his father tries to deny him his birthright.
” He turns to face me. “Father was going to disinherit me, Lorenzo. Did you know that? Right at the end. That was his plan. He wanted to destroy everything this Family has built and take it from me.” He sneers.
“He wanted to give it to you. After everything I’ve given this Family. Everything I’ve sacrificed.”
This is bad. This is very, very bad. This is not at all how I planned the night going. And Mother is here. There’s no way for me to signal Wolfe or Carlo and tell them that I suspect I’m in danger. That my mother might be in danger, too.
All I can do is buy myself some time. “So…what, Giovanni? Why are you telling me this? You found out that Father was going to disinherit you, and then…?”
“Then I did what I needed to do.” There’s no hesitation or remorse in his voice.
“I’d discovered the truth about Saturn Industrial Holdings some months ago.
I was doing what I could to quietly destroy them, burning those buildings down, but Father found out.
He, of course, didn’t approve. He raged against me.
So, again, I did what had to be done. If he couldn’t see how he was destroying our legacy, then I had to get him out of the way.
I loved him, Lorenzo. I loved him even when I did it, when I locked him in his study and lit the fire.
But he was going to hand everything I built to you, when you never really wanted it. I couldn’t—wouldn’t—let that happen.”
“You killed him,” I hiss.
“Yes.”
There’s not a flicker of shame in his voice.
“Mother!” I cry. “You hear him?”
She is unmoved. “I hear him, Lorenzo.”
My world tilts. How—what? No.
“You knew…” I whisper, horror dawning on me.
Unlike Giovanni, my mother has real remorse in her eyes. “I knew. I knew that Massimo was misguided in the end, and I knew that your brother would do what your father was too weak to do.”
“How could you?”
Her face hardens. In that moment, I see my mother for all she is: a daughter of Old World crime, a woman who grew up in a world where violence and terror were necessities of life.
“Your father was going to burn down generations of work.” Something ancient and furious surfaces in her face.
“I did not claw my way out of Sicily, didn’t marry a man a decade older than me, didn’t spend forty years in service of his empire, just to watch him destroy it all and turn the wreckage into something weak.
Giovanni knew that. He was willing to do what was necessary to protect this empire. And in the end, so was I.”
My chest feels like it’s cracking open, and I lunge for my brother. An old, animal instinct takes over, crushing all the careful planning I’ve done. All those plans are useless now that I’m in the same room as Giovanni and he’s chosen this moment to admit his crimes.
But then I stagger.
I catch myself against the edge of the sculpture, the bronze cool beneath my palm. A wave of nausea churns through me.
“What…”
“The whiskey,” Giovanni says, almost gently. “I’m sorry, Lorenzo. I really am. I would’ve preferred not to do this. You and I could’ve worked well together, if you’d just seen things the way I do.”
“Mother…”
Even as my vision blurs, darkness creeping into the edges, I see the tiny flicker of regret on my mother’s face. “It had to be done, Lorenzo. You were too close. You were about to find out.”
And then, my knees give out.
Giovanni’s hands catch me under the arms before I hit the floor, lowering me down with something almost like tenderness.
“Rest,” he says, close to my ear. “It’s almost over.”
The bronze sculpture blurs above me. The last thing I see before my eyes close is those ancient gods locked in an eternal struggle.
And my last thought before my mind leaves me is of Dash.
Please. Dear god, please let him be safe.
And then there’s nothing.