Chapter 3 - THE MAN WHO STOLE HIS THRONE
Z
By sunset, half of London’s criminal underworld believed Lorenzo DeLuca had lost his mind over a woman.
By eight, the story had gotten worse.
Mateo claimed Naomi had seduced Lorenzo.
By nine, she had supposedly stolen financial records.
By ten, rumors said Lorenzo had emptied company accounts and planned to flee England with her.
None of it was true.
That did not matter.
In Lorenzo’s world, truth moved slowly.
Fear traveled at full speed.
He sat in the Notting Hill safe house while Carlo relayed everything through an encrypted phone.
“They’re at The Marlowe,” Carlo said.
The Marlowe was Lorenzo’s private club.
His club.
His office.
His table.
Now Mateo sat in Lorenzo’s chair beneath the second-floor windows while twenty-three senior men listened to him explain why Lorenzo could no longer be trusted.
Naomi paced beside the fireplace.
“How many believe him?”
Carlo hesitated.
“Enough.”
Lorenzo’s voice remained flat.
“Names.”
Carlo gave them.
Lorenzo memorized each one.
Some hurt more than others.
Men whose children Lorenzo had put through school.
Men whose debts he had paid.
Men who had toasted his father at funerals and weddings.
Naomi watched his face.
“Are you okay?”
Lorenzo ended the call.
“No.”
It was the first honest answer he had given all day.
He poured two fingers of bourbon.
He did not drink it.
Naomi sat across from him.
“You’re thinking about going there.”
“Yes.”
“That’s what Mateo wants.”
“I know.”
“So don’t.”
Lorenzo looked at her.
“Twenty-five years ago, my father taught me something. A man can lose money. He can lose territory. Sometimes he can even lose blood. What he cannot lose is the room.”
“The room?”
“The people watching.”
He finally drank.
“The moment they believe someone else is stronger, you’re finished.”
Naomi leaned forward.
“Then don’t walk into Mateo’s room.”
Lorenzo raised an eyebrow.
“Make him walk into yours.”
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then Lorenzo smiled.
It was the first genuine smile Naomi had seen from him.
“You’re dangerous.”
“I dance for drunk bankers. You learn strategy.”
The plan came together in less than an hour.
Carlo quietly contacted six men still loyal to Lorenzo.
Finnigan supplied evidence of the diverted shipments.
Lorenzo accessed archived camera footage.
Naomi supplied the one thing Mateo did not know she still possessed.
A voice recording.
She had made it three weeks earlier when Mateo ordered her to put the tracker in Lorenzo’s car.
Her phone had been inside her bag.
The recording was imperfect.
But Mateo’s voice was unmistakable.
“You put it beneath the rear bumper, Naomi. He never checks himself.”
Then Naomi’s voice.
“And if I don’t?”
Mateo laughed.
“Then maybe Amaya doesn’t make her next appointment.”
Lorenzo listened once.
Then again.
The second time, his face became frighteningly still.
Naomi reached for the phone.
“That’s enough.”
He did not release it.
“He threatened a sick kid.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you go to the police?”
Naomi laughed bitterly.
“And say what? Hello, the second-in-command of a criminal organization is threatening my sister because I won’t spy on his mafia boss?”
Lorenzo looked at her.
“When you say it like that, it sounds complicated.”
She almost smiled.
Almost.
At eleven fifteen, Lorenzo sent Mateo a text.
ONE HOUR. OLD ROYAL EXCHANGE. COME ALONE.
Mateo replied forty seconds later.
BRING NAOMI.
Lorenzo typed:
SHE COMES WITH ME.
The Royal Exchange building they chose was not the famous one in central London, but an abandoned event hall near Wapping that their organization had once used for private auctions.
By midnight, Lorenzo had positioned his people.
Hidden cameras transmitted everything.
Naomi stood beside him in an upstairs office.
She wore a fitted black dress Sophia had once left at the safe house during a visit.
Lorenzo stared when she stepped out.
Naomi noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re staring.”
“I have eyes.”
Despite everything, she laughed.
For one strange second, the betrayal, guns, and danger disappeared.
Then Lorenzo walked closer.
His fingers lifted to the fading bruise near her cheek.
Naomi stopped breathing.
“Does it hurt?”
“Not much.”
His thumb barely touched her skin.
“I should have found you sooner.”
“You didn’t know I existed.”
“I should’ve.”
The words landed between them.
Neither moved.
Then headlights swept across the lower windows.
Mateo had arrived.
Naomi stepped back.
Lorenzo became the boss again.
Mateo entered alone.
Or appeared to.
He wore a navy suit and no overcoat despite the cold.
“Brother.”
The word echoed across the empty hall.
Lorenzo came down the stairs.
Naomi followed.
Mateo’s eyes settled on her.
Something ugly moved across his face.
“You really chose her?”
Lorenzo stopped ten feet away.
“I chose to ask questions.”
“You vanished.”
“You lied.”
Mateo laughed.
“About a stripper?”
Naomi stiffened.
Lorenzo did not.
“Careful.”
Mateo looked surprised.
Then amused.
“There it is. So the rumors are true.”
“What rumors?”
“That she got inside your head.”
Lorenzo removed a phone from his jacket.
He played the recording.
Mateo’s smile disappeared.
His own voice filled the hall.
“Then maybe Amaya doesn’t make her next appointment.”
Silence.
Lorenzo stopped the recording.
“Want to explain?”
Mateo looked at Naomi.
“You kept that?”
She lifted her chin.
“You should’ve killed me when you had the chance.”
Mateo’s expression changed.
“Maybe I still will.”
Lorenzo stepped between them.
“No.”
A single word.
But everyone hidden in the building heard it.
Mateo looked around slowly.
“You said come alone.”
“I did.”
“And?”
“I never said I would.”
Doors opened above them.
Carlo appeared.
Then Finnigan.
Then six armed men.
Mateo stared.
Lorenzo placed shipment records on the table.
“Rotterdam. Montreal. Halifax. Declan Shaw.”
Mateo glanced down.
His face remained calm.
Too calm.
Lorenzo realized his mistake half a second too late.
Mateo smiled.
“You think this meeting was your idea?”
The electricity died.
Darkness swallowed the hall.
Gunfire exploded upstairs.
Naomi screamed.
Lorenzo grabbed her and threw them both behind a concrete pillar.
Glass shattered.
Men shouted.
Carlo fired twice.
Then Lorenzo heard a sound that turned his blood cold.
Naomi gasped.
His hand reached beside him.
Empty floor.
“Naomi?”
No answer.
Emergency lights blinked on.
Lorenzo turned.
She was gone.
At the opposite exit stood Mateo.
One arm locked around Naomi.
A gun pressed beneath her jaw.
May you like
Mateo smiled at the man he once called brother.
“This time,” he said, dragging Naomi backward into the rain, “you come to my dock.”
