Chapter 4 - Blood on the White Carnations
The grand ballroom had grown suffocatingly tense during Lorenzo’s absence. Three hundred elite guests—mob bosses, corrupt politicians, and high-ranking lieutenants—stood whispering under the heavy crystal chandeliers. Guarding every exit were Lorenzo’s most trusted hitmen, their dark suits concealing submachine guns, their faces unreadable.
At the center of the room, sitting comfortably in a velvet armchair near the portrait of Isabella, was Don Salvatore Moretti.
At seventy-two years old, Salvatore was a relic of the old mafia—a snake who wrapped himself in silk tailored suits and pious speeches. He held a glass of expensive scotch, watching the locked doors with a faint, mocking smirk playing on his thin lips. He believed he was untouchable. He believed his plan had worked flawlessly for eight long months.
Thud.
The heavy double oak doors of the ballroom burst open.
The room fell into dead, terrifying silence. Every head turned.
Lorenzo DeLuca walked through the threshold. He wasn't wearing his suit jacket anymore; his crisp white shirt was rolled up at the sleeves, revealing the dark ink of old family tattoos covering his forearms. In his right hand, dragging carelessly by his collar along the polished marble floor, was Leo—his head bloodied, his jaw broken, weeping pathetically as his former boss hauled him like a sack of trash.
Gasps erupted across the hall. Several rival guards reached for their shoulder holsters, but the click of fifty DeLuca weapons cocking in unison froze everyone in place.
"Nobody move," a heavy voice echoed from the balcony above. Marco stood there, holding a submachine gun, his eyes burning with absolute vengeance.
Lorenzo threw Leo onto the floor at the base of the stage, right in front of Salvatore’s chair. The traitor collapsed at the older Don's feet, choking on his own blood.
Salvatore didn't flinch, though his knuckles tightened around his scotch glass. He forced a deep, grandfatherly chuckle. "Lorenzo... my boy. What is the meaning of this theater? You bring a bloody dog into your own fiancée's memorial?"
Lorenzo stepped over Leo's limp body. He stopped two feet away from Salvatore, looking down at the old man. The temperature in the grand hall dropped to absolute zero.
"Eight months ago, Salvatore," Lorenzo said, his voice terrifyingly calm, carrying across the silent room like a death sentence. "You paid my security chief to stage a car crash on the Verrazano road. You took my daughter and kept her locked in my own attic. And you took my wife."
The entire room gasped. Whispers surged through the crowd like a wild prairie fire.
Salvatore’s smirk faltered for a fraction of a second, his pale eyes widening before he quickly recovered his composure. "You're insane, Lorenzo. Grief has broken your mind! I came here tonight to honor Isabella—"
Lorenzo didn't let him finish.
With lightning speed, Lorenzo reached out, grabbed Salvatore by his silk tie, and hauled the seventy-two-year-old mob boss out of his chair with one arm, slamming him violently against the marble wall beneath Isabella's portrait. Glasses shattered on the nearby table.
"Where is she?" Lorenzo growled into his ear, pressing his thumb hard into the nerve behind Salvatore's jawbone until the old man gasped in agony. "Where is my wife?"
"She... she's dead!" Salvatore choked out, his face turning purple. "You buried her!"
Lorenzo pulled Leo’s suppressed pistol from his waistband and pressed the cold steel barrel directly into Salvatore’s kneecap.
Pfft.
A muffled crack echoed through the hall. Salvatore let out a blood-curdling scream as his left kneecap shattered. He sagged into Lorenzo’s grip, his sophisticated facade completely destroyed.
"The next one goes into your groin," Lorenzo whispered, his voice smooth and devoid of any human pity. "Then your stomach. Then your lungs. Where is Isabella?"
"Upstate!" Salvatore shrieked, tears and sweat streaming down his wrinkled face. "The St. Jude Private Sanatorium! Room 402! She’s alive, God damn you! She's alive!"
Silence fell back over the hall—a heavy, staggering silence as every mob boss in New York realized that Il Silenzioso had been pushed past the point of no return.
Lorenzo let go of the tie. Salvatore crumpled to the floor, clutching his bleeding knee, weeping uncontrollably.
Lorenzo turned back toward the room of three hundred terrified guests. He looked at his lieutenants.
"Clean this room," Lorenzo commanded coldly. "Lock Salvatore and Leo in the basement vault. If I don't call you in three hours with my wife in my arms, execute every member of the Moretti family currently in this house."
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Without waiting for a response, Lorenzo turned his back on the blood on the floor and strode out of the hall toward his armored convoy.
He had a daughter waiting in his study. And he had a wife to bring back from the dead.
