Chapter 5 - The Butcher of BrooklynThe intruder writhing on the floor—the one whose arm had been mangled by Pino—let out a choked, wet gasp as Lorenzo stepped over the dead body of his comrade and planted the polished toe of his shoe directly into the man’s windpipe.
"Who sent you?" Lorenzo asked, pressing down with just enough pressure to cut off the man's air supply without killing him yet.
"F-fuck you..." the intruder choked out, clawing frantically at Lorenzo’s trousers.
Lorenzo didn't blink. He simply applied another ten pounds of pressure. The man's eyes bulged, his face turning a deep, dangerous shade of purple.
"Let me rephrase," Lorenzo said, his voice dropping into a register so chillingly calm it made Clara’s blood run cold. "You have exactly five seconds to give me a name, or I feed what's left of your arm to the dog and throw you off the fourth-floor balcony while you're still breathing."
"Sal... Sal Moretti..." the man wheezed, spitting blood onto the Persian rug. "He... he said the girl was soft leverage... get the maid... send a message..."
Lorenzo glanced back for a fraction of a second, his slate-grey eyes locking onto Clara, who was standing in the corner with Emma buried safely against her neck, trembling uncontrollably.
A vein throbbed violently along Lorenzo’s jawline.
"Marco!" Lorenzo roared over his shoulder.
Marco appeared in the shattered doorway a second later, rifle raised, boots slick with blood from the staircase. "Boss! We got three more in the service stairwell. All neutralized."
"Clean up this trash," Lorenzo ordered, gesturing down at the wheezing assassin beneath his boot. "And assemble the strike teams. We're not waiting for dawn. We're paying a little visit to Sal Moretti's social club in Brooklyn."
"Boss, that's Moretti’s main stronghold," Marco warned, his eyes widening. "An outright assault on Brooklyn territory means full-scale war. The commission—"
"The commission can go to hell," Lorenzo snarled, his voice echoing off the vaulted ceiling with absolute finality. "They crossed my threshold. They put a gun in the same room as a child. Moretti’s syndicate ceases to exist by sunrise."
He turned back to Clara, his expression softening just a fraction as he walked over to her. The lethal, terrifying mafia boss vanished for a split second, replaced by the man who had knelt in the autumn leaves just hours before.
He reached out, his hand gently touching Clara’s shoulder. "Are you hurt?" he asked, his voice rough and low.
"N-no," Clara whispered, tears finally breaking over her eyelashes and cutting clean tracks through the dust on her cheeks. "We're okay. But Lorenzo... this is because of us. If we weren't here—"
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"If you weren't here, I would still be a ghost hiding behind stone walls," Lorenzo interrupted, his thumb gently wiping away a tear from her cheek. "Go back into the bedroom. Lock the door. Let me handle the monsters."
As Lorenzo turned and marched down the bullet-riddled corridor, surrounded by his armed men, Clara watched him go with a heart pounding a frantic rhythm. She realized then that the war had just begun—and there was no turning back for any of them.
