Chapter 2 - THE HANDSHAKE THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING
Z
Lorenzo replayed the footage three times.
He did not blink.
He did not speak.
Naomi watched the muscles in his jaw tighten harder with every replay.
Mateo stepped out of the Mercedes.
Declan Shaw approached him.
They shook hands.
Then Mateo handed him a black envelope.
Thirty-seven seconds later, the two men separated like businessmen concluding an ordinary deal.
Nothing about it was ordinary.
Shaw had been Lorenzo’s enemy for nine years.
Two of Lorenzo’s cousins had died during the conflict with Shaw’s organization. A warehouse had burned. A driver had disappeared. Lorenzo himself still carried a pale scar beneath his ribs from the night one of Shaw’s gunmen put a knife through him outside a restaurant in Manchester.
Mateo knew every detail.
Mateo had been beside Lorenzo in the hospital afterward.
He had brought whiskey into the recovery room and joked that nobody could kill a Russo or a DeLuca without filling out paperwork first.
Now he was shaking Shaw’s hand.
Naomi spoke carefully.
“What was in the envelope?”
Lorenzo closed the laptop.
“That’s what we find out.”
He stood.
Naomi immediately became tense.
“Where are you going?”
“To see a man who owes me a favor.”
“You said I don’t leave your side.”
Lorenzo looked back at her.
“That means you’re coming.”
Twenty minutes later, Naomi sat in the passenger seat of Lorenzo’s Range Rover wearing borrowed sweatpants and a dark hoodie he kept at the safe house.
Her curls were tied behind her head.
The bruising around her cheek had darkened.
Lorenzo noticed her touching it when she thought he was not looking.
Each time she did, something cold moved through him.
He had spent most of his adult life around violence.
It rarely surprised him.
But there was something about seeing Mateo’s work written across Naomi’s face that made it personal in a way Lorenzo did not understand.
They drove south.
London was beginning to wake.
Delivery vans moved through wet streets. Coffee shops raised shutters. Commuters stared at phones without realizing that two cars behind them sat a man deciding whether his best friend deserved to live.
Naomi broke the silence.
“Why did you trust him so much?”
Lorenzo kept his eyes on the road.
“Because when I was nineteen, I got arrested in Naples for something I didn’t do.”
“What?”
“Murder.”
She stared at him.
Lorenzo gave a humorless smile.
“Don’t look so shocked. I’ve done worse since.”
“What happened?”
“Mateo had information that could have cleared himself and buried me. Instead he kept quiet. Did six months because of it.”
“And you never forgot.”
“No.”
“That was twenty-five years ago.”
Lorenzo nodded.
“Some debts don’t expire.”
Naomi looked through the windshield.
“Maybe that’s why he thought you’d never suspect him.”
The sentence struck harder than she intended.
Lorenzo said nothing.
Their destination was an old boxing gym beneath a railway arch in South London.
The sign above the entrance read FINNIGAN’S.
Inside, an elderly Irishman with fists like bricks looked up from sweeping the floor.
Patrick Finnigan had spent thirty years unloading cargo along the Thames before retiring into a life where everyone still somehow told him everything.
His eyes moved from Lorenzo to Naomi.
“Well,” Finnigan said, “either you finally learned how to dress casually or the world’s ending.”
“Need information.”
“Everyone does.”
Lorenzo placed a photograph of Declan Shaw on the desk.
“I need to know what he bought nine nights ago.”
Finnigan’s humor disappeared.
He looked at Naomi again.
Then at Lorenzo.
“You sure you want the answer?”
“I didn’t drive across London for riddles.”
Finnigan sighed.
“Shaw’s buying routes.”
“What routes?”
“Yours.”
Silence filled the gym.
Finnigan continued.
“Someone’s been feeding him container numbers, customs contacts, arrival times. Shaw’s people have already redirected two shipments through Rotterdam.”
Lorenzo felt the blood drain from his face.
The missing guns.
The weapons that were supposed to be in the warehouse where Naomi had been found.
Mateo had not lost the shipment.
He had sold it.
“How much?” Lorenzo asked.
“Rumor says eight million.”
Naomi whispered, “Jesus.”
Finnigan shook his head.
“That isn’t the part that should worry you.”
Lorenzo’s eyes hardened.
“What is?”
“Your Canadian network.”
Finnigan stepped closer.
“Somebody gave Shaw the names of your people in Montreal and Toronto.”
Sophia.
Lorenzo immediately pulled out his phone.
He called.
No answer.
Again.
No answer.
On the third attempt, Sophia picked up.
“Lorenzo?”
Her voice sounded breathless.
“Where are you?”
“At the clinic. Why?”
“Leave.”
A pause.
“What?”
“Leave the clinic right now. Take Amaya Blake if she’s there and go somewhere nobody knows.”
Naomi rose from her chair.
“What happened?”
Lorenzo held up one finger.
Sophia lowered her voice.
“Two men came asking questions about you thirty minutes ago.”
“What men?”
“I didn’t recognize them.”
“Listen to me. Take the girl and go.”
“Lorenzo—”
“Now.”
He ended the call.
Naomi looked terrified.
“My sister is with Sophia?”
“Since an hour ago.”
“You moved her?”
“I paid to discharge her from Brixton and put her on a medical flight arrangement through one of Sophia’s people.”
Naomi stared at him.
“You never told me.”
“Because you were sleeping.”
Her eyes filled.
For one second, Lorenzo expected gratitude.
Instead, she slapped him.
Finnigan froze.
Lorenzo did too.
Naomi’s hand shook.
“You don’t move my sister without asking me.”
Lorenzo slowly turned his face back toward her.
“You’re right.”
That answer seemed to shock her more than anger would have.
“But if I’d waited,” he continued, “Mateo might have reached her first.”
Naomi lowered her eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
Finnigan cleared his throat.
“I hate interrupting whatever this is, but you two have a larger problem.”
He placed another photograph on the desk.
This one showed a shipping manifest.
Lorenzo read the destination.
Halifax.
The departure date was tomorrow.
Cargo value: twenty-two million pounds.
It was Lorenzo’s largest legitimate shipment of the year.
If Shaw took it, Lorenzo’s businesses would survive.
But his reputation would not.
Every ally would see weakness.
Every enemy would smell blood.
“He wants me at the docks,” Lorenzo said quietly.
Finnigan nodded.
“Looks that way.”
Naomi understood first.
“The warehouse. Mateo expected you to find me. Then he told you to bring me to the dock.”
Lorenzo looked at her.
“He wasn’t trying to silence you.”
She went pale.
“He was using me to get you there.”
Finnigan swore under his breath.
Lorenzo’s phone rang.
Carlo.
“Boss.”
“What?”
Carlo sounded nervous.
“Mateo called a meeting.”
Lorenzo’s expression changed.
“With who?”
“Everybody.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
“And what did he say?”
Carlo hesitated.
Then came the sentence that changed everything.
“He said Lorenzo DeLuca has disappeared with a woman who’s been spying on the organization.”
Naomi stared at Lorenzo.
May you like
Carlo continued.
“And he says until you return, he’s taking control.”
