Chapter 10
The guests nodded frantically, too terrified to speak, slowly inching away from the center of the terrace. Lorenzo ignored them and walked back to his wife and child. Alina looked up at him, her fair, rosy face pale but resolute.
"Dominic," Alina whispered, shaking her head. "I always knew he hated me, Lorenzo. But to order a public attack? To risk Lucy?"
"He miscalculated," Lorenzo rumbled, his thick hand gently brushing a stray lock of hair away from Lucy's tear-stained face. "He thought I had grown old and tired. He thought I would prioritize the family business over you."
"What are we going to do?" Alina asked, adjusting her grip on the three-year-old. "If Dominic ordered this, he won't stop with Ramona and Marcus. He will send someone else."
Lorenzo’s weathered face hardened into a mask of absolute, violent determination. The age lines around his deep-set brown eyes seemed to deepen, carving a map of the impending war into his skin.
"We are going home," Lorenzo said, wrapping his heavy, muscular arm securely around Alina's shoulders, shielding both her and the child against his solid torso. "We are going to lock the estate down. And then, I am going to have a conversation with my brother."
"He has half the capos on his side, Lorenzo," Alina warned softly, her protective instincts analyzing the terrifying political landscape of their family. "He has the muscle."
"He has men," Lorenzo corrected her, his voice dropping to a lethal, quiet register. "But he doesn't have me. And tonight, they are all going to remember exactly why I sit at the head of the table."
As Lorenzo guided his family toward the private exit, the heavy double doors at the far end of the terrace suddenly rattled violently. The bodyguards standing guard drew their weapons instantly, aiming at the frosted glass. Someone was on the other side, and they weren't trying to use a key.
May you like
The sound of heavy, synchronized footsteps echoed from the hallway beyond, followed by the deafening crack of a shotgun blasting the lock entirely off the door.
Lorenzo pushed Alina and Lucy firmly behind a thick marble column, his old-school boxer physique tensing, his large hands balling into fists as the doors swung violently open, plunging the Connecticut luncheon into an entirely new nightmare.
