Chapter 4 - The Vengeance of the BloodLorenzo placed the sleeping child gently onto the velvet sofa, covering her with his own cashmere overcoat. He motioned for Sal to watch over her, then walked out of the study, motioning for Elena to follow him down the dimly lit hallway toward the grand balcony overlooking the ground floor.
Downstairs, the walnut conference room doors were still open. Through the wrought-iron railing, Lorenzo could see his uncle Vittorio pouring a glass of bourbon, his hands still shaking slightly. Carmine Falcone and the other syndicate leaders had departed through the service elevators, leaving the inner circle alone with their reckoning.
"Sal," Lorenzo said quietly, his voice like grinding stones. "Bring Vittorio up here. And bring two men with zip ties."
Ten minutes later, Vittorio Moretti was shoved into the private study. The old man’s face was pale, his posture rigid as he looked at Lorenzo standing beside the desk, and Elena standing near the sofa where the child slept.
"Lorenzo? What is the meaning of this theater?" Vittorio attempted a grandfatherly chuckle, though his eyes darted nervously toward the titanium thumb drive sitting on the blotter. "Dragging your own uncle out of a meeting because of a stray maid and her brat?"
"She isn't a stray," Lorenzo said, his voice terrifyingly calm. He picked up the drive. "And you aren't an uncle anymore. You’re a liability."
Vittorio’s expression hardened, the mask of warmth dropping away to reveal the cold, calculating predator underneath. "You actually believe the widow of a traitor? Julian Vance tried to blackmail me. He wanted a cut of the dock expansion fees to fund his little suburban life with this woman. I merely cleaned up a mess before he could ruin everything we built."
"He found out you were selling our routes to the Falcones," Lorenzo stepped forward, his six-foot-two frame towering over the old man. "He found out you engineered the 'accident' that killed my brother Matteo because Matteo refused to look the other way when you started skimming."
Vittorio sneered. "Matteo was soft! Just like you were getting soft! Sitting in this house playing boardroom king while our empire rotted from the inside!"
Before Vittorio could finish his sentence, Lorenzo’s fist struck him across the jaw with bone-crushing force. The old man crumpled to the Persian rug, blood pooling at the corner of his mouth.
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"Sal," Lorenzo said without looking back. "Take him to the Brooklyn facility. Let him think about his retirement plan while the federal prosecutors receive every encrypted file on this drive."
As Sal and the enforcers dragged the thrashing, cursing uncle out of the room, Elena sank against the wall, sliding down until she sat on the floor, weeping with a mixture of terror and overwhelming relief.
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