Chapter 3 - Taken from the Shadows
"No," I breathed, backing away toward the kitchen doors. "No, please! I have a life! I have rent to pay, I have—"
"You have a target on your back," Lorenzo interrupted sharply, taking three slow, deliberate steps toward me until he was standing directly in my personal space. "Look at yourself, Mara. You have the exact face of Clara Moretti—the late matriarch of the Moretti family. If my enemies see you walking down the street, they won't ask if you're a waitress. They will shoot you first and check your pulse later."
"My mother raised me alone!" I shouted, my voice trembling with a mixture of terror and anger. "She was a seamstress! We lived in a basement apartment in South Boston! I don't belong to your world!"
Lorenzo paused, his storm-gray eyes narrowing as if searching through a mental ledger.
"What was your mother's name?" he asked.
"Sofia," I whispered. "Sofia Vance."
The moment the name left my lips, Marco gasped behind us, his hand instinctively going to his weapon. Lorenzo’s face went deadly pale, his jaw clenching so hard a muscle twitched near his cheek scar.
"Sofia," Lorenzo repeated softly. "Sofia Moretti. Clara’s aunt who vanished twenty-four years ago during the family purge."
My breathing stopped completely. Moretti. The name my mother spent twenty-three years terrified to hear.
Before I could process the nightmare unfolding around me, a deafening crash echoed through the front windows of the restaurant.
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!
Glass exploded inward in a shower of lethal crystals. Automatic gunfire tore through the dining room, ripping through velvet booths, shattering wine bottles behind the bar, and sending plaster raining down from the ceiling.
"DOWN!" Lorenzo roared.
In a fraction of a second, Lorenzo slammed his heavy body over mine, shielding both me and little Matteo as we crashed to the floor behind the solid oak host stand. The smell of gunsmoke, copper, and shattered wine filled the air.
Matteo didn't scream. The eight-month-old child simply clung to my shirt, burying his small face into my ribs while I wrapped my body around him, shielding his head with my bare hands.
"Falcone’s men!" Marco yelled over the deafening chatter of gunfire, firing back through the shattered window frame with a silenced pistol. "They saw your car parked outside, Boss! They brought heavy hardware!"
"Take the back alley!" Lorenzo commanded, pulling a heavy matte-black handgun from under his tailored suit jacket. He looked down at me, his face inches from mine, his eyes burning with an intense, protective fire. "Stay low. If you let go of my son, I will tear this city apart to find you. Do you understand me?"
"I've got him!" I screamed over the roar of bullets. "I've got him!"
Lorenzo stood up in one fluid movement, firing three precise shots through the cloud of dust. Two men wearing tactical vests collapsed onto the pavement outside.
"Move! Now!" Marco yelled, grabbing my arm and pulling me toward the kitchen corridor.
We sprinted through the kitchen, past overturned pots of boiling pasta sauce and terrified line cooks hiding under stainless steel counters. We burst into the dark, rain-slicked alleyway behind the restaurant, where two bulletproof black SUVs were waiting, their engines rumbling like caged beasts.
Marco yanked the heavy door of the lead SUV open and practically shoved me inside. I tumbled onto the leather seat, pulling Matteo tight against my chest.
A second later, Lorenzo dove into the back seat beside me, slamming the heavy reinforced door shut just as bullets slammed against the bulletproof glass with loud, metallic thuds.
"Drive!" Lorenzo commanded.
The SUV accelerated with violent force, throwing me back against the leather. Down the alley, the secondary vehicle opened fire, covering our escape into the rainy Boston night.
In the dark interior of the vehicle, the only sound was my ragged breathing and the steady beat of the rain against the roof.
I looked down. Matteo was looking up at me in the dim streetlamp glow, his tiny thumb tucked in his mouth, his little fingers still hooked tightly into the strap of my waitress apron.
Lorenzo leaned back against the headrest, chest heaving, blood dripping from a shallow glass cut along his cheekbone. He looked at me, then at his son, and finally at my hand—where a thin silver chain had slipped out from beneath my apron collar during the chaos.
Hanging from the chain was a small silver medallion: a dragon wrapped around a broken sword.
May you like
Lorenzo reached out and touched the metal medallion. His touch was warm, sending a strange, electric shock straight down my spine.
"Your mother didn't just hide you, Mara," Lorenzo said quietly, his voice laced with grim certainty. "She took the key to the entire syndicate with her."
