Valentina.
The room was too quiet for a space packed with this much tension. Matteo stood next to me, his jaw clenched, eyes flicking between Lorenzo and the map on the monitor.
Lorenzo, though, leaned casually against the wall, smirking like he was the only one in on the joke.
“Cheer up, Matteo. It’s not every day you face the devil himself.”
But it wasn’t the map that was holding my attention, though.
It was him.
Lorenzo.
More precisely, the way he kept glancing at Matteo when he thought no one else was looking.
Subtle glances. The way his expression softened… not with the usual rocky amusement but with something… gentler. Warmer. It wasn’t admiration. It wasn’t envy. It was something that made my stomach twist because it was too close to…
Longing.
I didn’t trust him. And I knew Matteo didn’t either, and yet here we were, walking straight into the spider’s web because he had dangled the one thing we couldn’t resist.
Luca’s location.
“Alright,” Matteo said finally, his voice cutting through the silence like a blade. “You said Luca’s consolidating power. That he’s moving tonight. What’s the endgame here, Lorenzo?”
Lorenzo pushed off the wall, his smirk returning. “The endgame? Survival, of course.”
Oh, everyone here knew that was bullshit.
“Don’t be coy,” I snapped, folding my arms. “Why would you want to destroy Luca? Why not wait for Matteo and Luca to finish fighting so you can pick up the pieces later? What’s in this for you?”
Lorenzo’s eyes shifted to me, and for a moment, I thought I saw something close to regret flicker in his eyes.
“Luca and I have… history,” he said slowly.
“That’s not an answer,” Matteo said, stepping closer, his body radiating barely restrained aggression.
“It’s the answer,” Lorenzo replied, meeting Matteo’s glare without flinching. “Luca took something from me… a while ago. Something I can’t get back. And now I have to show him the reason why no one messes with me. Easy peasy.”
He grinned like a child who was given a candy.
“What did he take?” I couldn’t help but press, my voice low but sharp.
I caught the sharp glance Alessia sent my way, but she didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. It was Matteo, Lorenzo, and I.
Lorenzo’s eyes met mine, and I felt the weight of his eyes like a physical thing. “A simple deal. One that could’ve changed the sequence of events if he had done well. Your dear Luca conned me, pocketed the money, and handed what I paid for to someone else.”
His words were calm and measured, but there was an edge to them that made my skin prickle.
That was it?
“That’s it?” Matteo asked, incredulous. “This whole vendetta is because he scammed you? You expect me… us to believe you’ve been hiding all these times, planning your revenge, because of a bad business deal?”
“Believe what you want,” Lorenzo said, shrugging. “But I’m here now, aren’t I? Offering you a shot at him on a silver platter. Maybe focus less on my motives and more on your own.”
Matteo opened his mouth to retort, but I cut him off, my eyes still locked on Lorenzo.
“Who did he give it to?” I asked.
Lorenzo’s expression darkened, his easy confidence faltering for the first time. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Clearly, it does,” I said, stepping closer. “Because you’re still carrying it around, whatever it is. So who? Who did he choose over you?”
For a long moment, he didn’t answer. He just stared at me, his jaw tightening. And then, so quietly I almost didn’t hear it, he said.
“I don’t know him.” A lie. Had to be. “Dark haired. Perchance for violence. Loved and died fiercely from what I heard recently.”
He hadn’t said a name, but he looked at me like he expected me to know who he was talking about.
“Wait,” Matteo said, his voice sharp. “You’re saying my brother gave whatever this was… to someone you didn’t investigate?”
Lorenzo’s eyes shifted back to him, his mask of calm arrogance slipping back into place. “He didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, though I don’t expect you to understand, Matteo. He gave it to the wrong person, and that’s all I’m going to say.”
“You could have worked faster then if it meant so much to you. Save the rest of us the headache.”
“Well, I love to savour things,” Lorenzo shot back, his voice rising. “But I’m helping now, aren’t I? Helping you. Or did you miss that part?”
“You’re not helping anyone,” Matteo snarled, stepping closer. “A mafia don only helps himself.”
“Of course your father would teach you that.”
The offhanded comments and back and forth between both of them were seriously giving me a headache.
“This isn’t getting us anywhere,” I said as I grabbed onto Matteo’s arm.
He looked at me, his anger still simmering just beneath the surface, but he didn’t pull away.
“Fine,” I said, turning back to Lorenzo. “You’ve told us just enough to keep us on the hook, but not enough to actually trust you. So let me ask you one more thing.”
Lorenzo raised an eyebrow, his smirk returning. “By all means.”
“Why are you really here?” I asked, my voice steady. “Is it just revenge? Or is there something else you’re after?”
For the second time that night, his mask cracked. Just a little.
“I’m here,” he said slowly, his gaze boring into mine, “because I want to see Luca fall. And because I want… closure.”
His words hung in the air, heavy and loaded with meaning I couldn’t quite decipher. But it wasn’t his words that unsettled me. It was the way he was looking at me.
Like he wasn’t talking about Luca at all.
“Alright,” Matteo said finally, his voice cutting through the tension. “You want to take down Luca? Fine. But if you screw us over…”
“I won’t,” Lorenzo said, his tone serious for once.
Matteo didn’t look convinced, but he nodded, stepping back. “Then let us in on what you want to do.”
“Alright.”
As the others moved backwards so Lorenzo could explain, I hesitated, my mind racing. Something about this didn’t add up.
It wasn’t rocket science to know Lorenzo was hiding something… something big. And if I wasn’t careful, it was going to blow up in all our faces.
I took a deep breath, forcing myself to calm down. I couldn’t afford to let my doubts show. Not yet.
For now, I had to play the game.
But I wasn’t going to let Lorenzo out of my sight.
Not for a second.