Chapter 6 - THE BLOODLINE'S VENGANCEInside the suffocating white mist of the Halon gas, Lorenzo moved like a predator born in the dark.
He didn't need vision. He knew every inch of his brother's wing.
THUD. CRACK. ARGH!
The sound of shattering bones and gasping Russian mercenaries echoed through the foggy room. Lorenzo systematically dismantled Sokolov’s elite guard in thirty seconds flat, using his bare hands and the butt of his heavy silver Beretta.
Lydia, holding her breath, grabbed Mateo's specialized wheelchair, unlocked the heavy floor brakes, and rolled him backwards into the sealed service hallway, slamming the emergency air-lock door shut behind them.
Inside the service corridor, clean oxygen rushed into their lungs.
Lydia sank against the wall, coughing, her chest heaving as she sucked in the fresh air. "Mateo... are you... okay?"
"I'm fine," Mateo panted, his raspy voice filled with awe as he looked at the sealed door. "My brother is going to kill him, isn't he?"
"Yes," Lydia said quietly, looking at her reflection in the glass panel. "He is."
Inside the main room, the Halon gas began to vent out through the shattered windows.
Viktor Sokolov was on his knees, gasping for air, his gold-plated revolver lying three feet out of reach on the blood-stained carpet. His remote detonator had been crushed under a heavy combat boot.
A massive shadow fell over him.
Lorenzo stood over the Russian Don. His face was covered in soot, blood, and cold, unadulterated fury. He reached down, grabbed Sokolov by the lapels of his mink coat, and lifted the two-hundred-and-fifty-pound mob boss off the floor with one arm, slamming him against the marble pillar.
"Who gave you the codes to my estate, Sokolov?" Lorenzo asked, his voice low, vibrating like an engine preparing to explode.
Sokolov choked, spitting blood onto Lorenzo’s cheek. "Fuck... you... Moretti..."
Lorenzo drew a long, curved tactical blade from his belt—the ancestral Stiletto Moretti.
He pressed the razor-sharp tip directly against Sokolov's right eyeball.
"I will ask you once more," Lorenzo whispered softly, his breath hot against the Russian's ear. "And then I will take your eyes, your tongue, and your fingers one by one. Who sold out my brother?"
Sokolov’s body trembled violently. The cold terror of looking death directly in the face broke his military discipline.
"It... it wasn't Silvano!" Sokolov wept, tears cutting clean lines through the soot on his cheeks. "Silvano was just the decoy! The real insider... the one who gave us the codes... was your father's old counselor!"
Lorenzo froze. His hazel eyes contracted into tiny needles. "Uncle Carmine?"
"Yes!" Sokolov gasped. "Carmine set up the hit two years ago! He wants the Five Families unified under New York control! He used the Lucchesi family to take the fall tonight so he could take over Chicago smoothly!"
Lorenzo stood motionless for three agonizing seconds.
Don Carmine. The head of the New York Commission. The man who had sat as the ultimate arbiter at the Drake Hotel hours ago. The man who had pretended to side with Lorenzo and Lydia.
Lorenzo pulled the blade back half an inch.
"Thank you for your honesty, Viktor," Lorenzo murmured.
SLASH.
Lorenzo didn't look down as Sokolov’s heavy body collapsed onto the marble floor. He wiped his blade clean on the dead man's mink coat, slid it back into his sheath, and walked toward the sealed service door.
The door slid open.
Lydia and Mateo looked up as Lorenzo stepped through.
Lorenzo looked at Lydia. The dark rage in his eyes instantly melted into an overwhelming, fierce devotion. He walked straight past his brother's chair, pulled Lydia into his arms, and lifted her off her feet, burying his face in her neck.
"You're safe," he rasped, his powerful arms locked around her plush waist, holding her like she was the only precious thing left in a world made of blood and ash. "You saved him again."
Lydia wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders, feeling the heavy, frantic thumping of his heart against her chest. "We saved each other, Enzo."
Lorenzo pulled back slightly, his hands framing her face, his thumb gently wiping a speck of gunpowder from her lip.
"Carmine is the rat," Lorenzo said quietly.
Mateo let out a low gasp. "Carmine? But he was father's best friend!"
"He wants the entire Midwest," Lorenzo said, his voice turning to razor-sharp steel. "He’s leaving Chicago on his private jet from O'Hare in two hours. He thinks he left us fighting Russians at the estate."
Lydia looked at Lorenzo, her eyes narrowing thoughtfully. "His jet is parked at the private Signature Aviation hangar, right?"
Lorenzo nodded. "Yes. How do you know that?"
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Lydia smiled—a dark, brilliant, wicked smile.
"Because my uncle worked night-shift refueling at Signature Aviation for twelve years," Lydia revealed, her dark eyes flashing with lethal brilliance. "And I know exactly how to lock down a runway without firing a single bullet."
