Chapter 5 - The Serpent in Emerald
Lorenzo leaned forward, his dark eyes narrowing as he studied her trembling hands. "Keep her alive from whom?"
Elena wiped a tear from her cheek, her gaze shifting to the black-and-gold pendant on the table. "Fifteen years ago, I didn't run away because I was afraid of the rival families. I ran because I saw who opened the estate gates for the killers."
Lorenzo’s jaw clenched tightly, his light stubble shadowing a cold, lethal fury. "Who was it?"
"It wasn't a rival boss," Elena whispered, her body shaking with memories she had spent fifteen years trying to bury. "It was someone inside your family’s inner council. A person who managed your father’s accounts and security protocols. Someone who signed off on the house inventory."
Lorenzo’s mind raced through the names of the dead and missing from that night. "Renata?"
"Renata was just the handler inside the house," Elena revealed softly. "The man who paid her to open the gates was your father's senior partner—Don Carmine Moretti."
Lorenzo’s breath hitched. Don Carmine Moretti was the oldest living boss on the Commission—the man who had stood by Lorenzo’s side at his father's funeral, the man who had funded Lorenzo’s rise to power, claiming to be his guardian.
"Carmine..." Lorenzo murmured, the realization striking him like a physical blow. "He built my empire with me so he could control the Duca territory from the shadows."
"He thought I died in the fire fifteen years ago," Elena continued, looking directly into Lorenzo’s eyes. "My father gave me that pendant minutes before he was shot. He told me the gold casing holds an encrypted micro-drive containing the original security recordings from the night of the massacre."
She reached out with a trembling finger, touching the golden crest.
"I hid in hiding for years," Elena choked out. "But three months ago, Carmine’s men tracked my old apartment down. I had nowhere else to go. I took a job here as a maid under a dead woman's identity because I knew Carmine’s men couldn't raid the Duca estate without starting an all-out war with you."
Before Lorenzo could answer, the lights inside the guest suite flickered twice and died, plunging the room into absolute darkness.
Outside in the hallway, a heavy metallic thud echoed, followed by the sound of glass shattering on the ground floor.
Lorenzo stood up instantly, his hand moving to the holster beneath his arm.
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Through the dark suite window, red emergency flares suddenly ignited in the courtyard below, casting eerie crimson shadows across the walls.
Marco’s voice crackled through Lorenzo’s earpiece, sharp and urgent: "Boss! The perimeter fence was cut from the outside! Armed vehicles are entering the main driveway! We are under attack!"
