Chapter 4 - THE ONE WOMAN HE COULD NOT LEAVE BEHIND
Z
Lorenzo did not remember crossing the hall.
One second Mateo was dragging Naomi through the emergency exit.
The next, Lorenzo was running through shattered glass with Carlo shouting behind him.
Rain hit his face.
A black Mercedes accelerated away from the building.
Lorenzo fired once.
The bullet shattered a taillight.
He fired again.
Carlo slammed Lorenzo’s arm down.
“Boss! Naomi’s inside!”
Lorenzo stopped.
The Mercedes disappeared around the corner.
For five full seconds he stood in the rain, gun hanging at his side.
Nobody spoke.
Nobody needed to.
Every man there had seen Lorenzo angry.
They had seen him bloody.
They had seen him order men removed from his organization without raising his voice.
They had never seen him afraid.
Until that moment.
Carlo stepped closer.
“We’ll find her.”
Lorenzo turned.
“Mateo knew about this place.”
“Yes.”
“He knew the lights. Entrances. My men.”
Carlo understood.
“Somebody inside told him.”
Lorenzo walked back into the hall.
One of the six loyal men was dead.
Another had been shot in the shoulder.
Finnigan was alive.
So was everyone else.
Lorenzo looked at each face.
A traitor had betrayed a meeting designed to expose a traitor.
That irony might have been funny on another night.
Not this one.
His phone rang.
Unknown number.
Everyone became silent.
Lorenzo answered.
Mateo’s voice came through.
“You shoot at my car again with her inside, and I’ll send her back one piece at a time.”
Lorenzo said nothing.
“You there, brother?”
“Where?”
Mateo laughed softly.
“Now you’re listening.”
Lorenzo’s fingers tightened around the phone.
Naomi’s voice sounded in the background.
“Don’t come, Lorenzo!”
A sharp slap followed.
Lorenzo closed his eyes.
Mateo spoke again.
“Royal Victoria Dock. Warehouse thirty-one. Four a.m.”
“You touch her again—”
“What? You’ll kill me?”
Mateo sounded almost sad.
“You were going to do that anyway.”
The call ended.
Carlo looked at Lorenzo.
“It’s a trap.”
“Yes.”
“You can’t go.”
“Yes, I can.”
“She’d tell you not to.”
“She already did.”
Finnigan stepped forward.
“And that tells you something.”
Lorenzo looked at him.
“If she was working with Mateo, she wouldn’t warn you away.”
That mattered.
More than Lorenzo wanted to admit.
Because somewhere in the last forty-eight hours, suspicion had turned into something else.
Trust.
And trust was more frightening to him than bullets.
At three fifteen, Lorenzo stood in front of a mirror inside the safe house.
He buttoned a black shirt over a Kevlar vest.
Carlo entered.
“I found the leak.”
Lorenzo looked at him through the mirror.
“Who?”
“Enzo.”
Lorenzo went still.
Enzo Marini had worked for him for twelve years.
Carlo placed a phone on the table.
“Messages to Dryland. Meeting location, number of men, entrances.”
Lorenzo did not ask for excuses.
“Where is he?”
“Downstairs.”
Lorenzo descended.
Enzo sat tied to a kitchen chair.
Blood trickled from his lip.
When Lorenzo entered, the man began talking immediately.
“Boss, please. Mateo said you were finished. He said Shaw was coming and anybody standing beside you would go down too.”
Lorenzo pulled out another chair.
He sat.
“You sold me because you thought I might lose?”
Enzo cried.
“My wife is pregnant.”
“And Naomi’s sister is sick.”
Enzo looked confused.
Lorenzo continued.
“Mateo threatened her family. She still told him no.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I.”
Lorenzo stood.
He looked at Carlo.
“Don’t kill him.”
Enzo began sobbing with relief.
Lorenzo walked toward the door.
“Give him enough money to leave England. If I ever see him again, that changes.”
Carlo stared.
That was not the punishment anyone expected.
Neither did Enzo.
“Why?” Enzo whispered.
Lorenzo stopped.
“Because Mateo thinks fear is loyalty.”
He looked over his shoulder.
“I’m done making that mistake.”
At Royal Victoria Dock, Naomi sat handcuffed to a steel pipe.
Mateo paced in front of her.
“You know what I hate about him?” he asked.
Naomi remained silent.
“He thinks he built everything.”
“You betrayed him.”
Mateo laughed.
“You think this is about betrayal?”
He crouched in front of her.
“When we were nineteen, I went to prison for him.”
“I know.”
“He told you that?”
“He remembers.”
“He remembers the story he likes.”
Mateo’s face darkened.
“The murder charge was mine.”
Naomi stared.
“I killed that man.”
A chill moved through her.
“Lorenzo never knew.”
“No.”
Mateo smiled bitterly.
“I let him believe I sacrificed myself to save him. That lie bought me twenty-five years beside a king.”
“Then why destroy it?”
“Because beside the king is still not the throne.”
Naomi looked at him with disgust.
“You had everything.”
“No. Lorenzo had everything.”
He pointed toward himself.
“I had permission.”
Outside the warehouse, engines approached.
Mateo smiled.
“He came.”
Naomi’s heart dropped.
Three black vehicles rolled into the dockyard.
Lorenzo stepped from the center Range Rover alone.
At least apparently alone.
He walked toward warehouse thirty-one with no visible weapon.
Inside, Naomi struggled against the handcuff.
Mateo positioned himself behind a stack of cargo pallets.
Declan Shaw emerged from the shadows with eight men.
Naomi’s eyes widened.
Mateo smiled.
“That’s the part Lorenzo hasn’t figured out.”
“What?”
“You were never the prize.”
The warehouse door opened.
Lorenzo entered.
His gaze found Naomi instantly.
Then Shaw.
Then Mateo.
He did not react.
Shaw clapped slowly.
“The great Lorenzo DeLuca.”
Lorenzo looked at Mateo.
“You needed him to fight me?”
Mateo stepped forward.
“I needed him to bury you.”
“Same difference.”
Shaw smiled.
Mateo did not.
A document waited on a steel table.
Mateo pushed it toward Lorenzo.
“Sign.”
Lorenzo glanced down.
Transfer of controlling interest.
Shipping companies.
Clubs.
Warehouses.
Routes.
Everything.
“You want my empire.”
“I built half of it.”
“You want me to sign it over?”
Mateo raised his gun toward Naomi.
“No.”
He smiled.
“She does.”
Lorenzo’s face changed.
Naomi looked at him in confusion.
Mateo tossed another document onto the table.
Lorenzo read the first line.
And for the first time all night, genuine shock appeared in his eyes.
Because the paper did not contain Naomi Blake’s name.
It contained another one.
NAOMI DE LUCA.
Naomi stared.
“What is that?”
May you like
Mateo laughed.
“Ask Lorenzo why his father put your mother in his will.”
