Shadows Of The Vow

Chapter Five Bloodshot

Lorenzo's POV

“You’re f*****g telling me what?!”

I barked so loud it echoed off the stone walls of the courtyard of my penthouse, like a goddamn battle cry.

All of them, ten grown men, knelt on the gravel like guilty schoolboys. Heads down. Lips sealed. The stink of sweat and shame hovered over them like fog.

Their wounds from the evening’s fight had been bound up.

Only Scales remained standing, arms crossed, jaw clenched.

“Lord,” one of them finally spoke up, Santos, the one with more cowardice than sense. “We… We don't know what kind of weapon they used. We’re still trying to… ”

“Still trying to?” I roared. “Trying to figure it out? Is that what the f**k I’m paying you for, Santos? To try?!”

He flinched. The others stared at the dirt, praying not to be noticed.

“Always losing. Always chasing shadows. Always playing second fiddle to Antonioni! Weren’t you trained for this? Aren’t you supposed to be ten steps ahead of those dogs?!”

Silence.

I stepped closer, boots crunching on the gravel.

My coat flared behind me like a vulture’s wings.

I shoved Santos hard in the chest. He toppled backwards like a sack of disgrace.

“We were right there,” I seethed, “right f*****g there. The crates were ours. All we needed to do was hold the damn line.”

“They had new fire, lord,” Scales spoke, voice like gravel. “Some kind of pulse retreater. Took out six of ours in five seconds.”

“Then why the hell didn’t you match it!?" Where was our tech?! Our backups?!”

Scales didn’t flinch. “We didn’t expect them to come armed with that kind of heat. Wasn't in the intel.”

I turned away, fists balled.

Intel.

That word again.

Every loss was “bad intel.” Every mistake was “unexpected.” No one wanted to admit we were bleeding power and lacking knowledge of modern weapons, fast.

“I watched Antonioni walk away with everything,” I muttered. “He looked me in the eye. Like he pitied me.”

One of the boys sniffled.

Wrong move.

“Get up,” I said, turning to the one who made the sound. A thin boy named Victor, barely twenty.

He looked up, eyes wide.

“Get the f**k up!” I roared.

He scrambled to his feet, trembling.

I walked to the table by the wall, picked up my gold-plated Glock, and held it like a judgment hammer.

“Now run,” I ordered him.

“Lord— please— ”

“Run!”

He bolted, feet slipping on the gravel.

One shot.

His body hit the floor before his scream did.

Everyone froze. Even the wind seemed

afraid to move.

“This sends a warning to every one of you dawgs. I ain't here for freaking jokes!” I yelled angrily.

One of the guards guarding the entrance came and picked up his lifeless body. He was used to the experience.

“You fail me again,” I said, voice calm now, cold, “I start clearing house. One by one. Until there’s no one left but men who know how to win.”

I turned to Scales.

“Call our suppliers. I want the same damn weapon they used. Find it. Import it. Steal it. I don’t care. I want it before this week runs out.”

“Yes, lord.”

“And Antonioni…”

I clenched my jaw so tight my teeth hurt, looking into a space.

“He thinks this is over?”

I turned and looked at the rest of them.

“This is just the first cut. And a Viper doesn’t die from a single wound.”

I holstered my gun and walked out, rage burning a hole through my chest.

War was coming. And this time, I wasn’t just going to play to win, I was f*****g going to play to destroy.

****

I was going to light a cigarette as I moved slowly towards the hallway when I heard the door crack open behind me.

“Boss,” Scales muttered, his eyes shifting to the side to indicate someone had entered.

He didn’t have to say it. I already knew who was standing there.

He walked in like smoke—silent, easy, faceless in a crowd but dangerous in a room. No one knew his name. We just called him Creeper. One of Antonioni’s men by day, and my whisper in the ear by night.

I looked at him and nodded.

“You sure about the time?” I asked, cigarette lit, smoke dancing like prophecy.

“Down to the damn minute,” He said, calm as stone. “They moved out around 4:32 p.m. yesterday. Hit the docks at 5:07. Same time your boys were already baiting the south wall.”

“Good,” I said, flicking ash onto the concrete. “You did your part.”

He handed Scales a folded sheet, a sketch of Antonioni’s current weapons cache in Marina Park. Updated routes. Body rotations. Everything.

“And the prototype?” I asked.

“Still in transit. One more week. But when it lands…” He gave a slow, sick smile. “Antonioni’s walls won’t hold.”

I looked at the men still kneeling.

“They see a ghost in you. Keep it that way.”

He nodded once and slipped away into the shadows, like he was never with us.

Behind me, Santos released a breath he never knew he was holding.

“Creeper— We’re lucky he’s on our side,” he whispered to himself.

I exhaled smoke and gave a cold chuckle.

“He’s not on our side,” I said, growling. “He’s just standing where the wind’s blowing.”

And when I turn up the storm—

There’ll be nowhere left for rats to hide.

“Scales! Tighten up the Istanbul trail. Their sniffers will be coming in a few weeks from now.” I commanded. “Don't tell me you lost this time!” I roared, finally taking my leave while muttering the name—

“Luca”

I kept on chuckling screechely, as I directed my movement back to my penthouse.

I was now sitting on my working seat.

The city below me twinkled like diamonds spilled on black velvet. But I wasn’t looking out the glass walls.

I was staring at numbers.

Money. Routes. Ghost names. Dead accounts I’d dragged back from the grave using the black craft of digital resurrection.

To the government, Lorenzo Di Varro Ricco barely exists. But to the dark grid? I’m everywhere.

I am Daniel Arthur, a U.S. Senator.

I am Hakim Lumbarla, a retired diplomat from Sierra Leone.

I am Mikhail Vostrikovv, a private arms dealer with diplomatic clearance.

Each name... each fake heartbeat... backs an account that bleeds real money into my veins.

And across from me? Half-shadowed in the glow of neon code, sat Zanesville.

Yeah. Zanesville. My right hand in the digital underworld. Cold as Arctic steel. Brilliant like a dying star. Her fingers moved across that keyboard like they were scoring a symphony of war.

“You see that?” She said, voice all smoke and silver. She tilted her screen my way. “The senator’s name rerouted through Luxembourg. Clean bounce off Canada. Washed up perfectly inside a medical NGO in Paris. No flags. No alarms.”

I pulled on my cigarette, watching the last ember curl. “How much?”

“Eight hundred grand,” She replied, not even blinking. “Clean. The second batch hits tomorrow. Once the shell companies play their part, it’s game over.”

I laughed under my breath. “Eight hundred in three days, using a dead man’s smile.”

She gave the slightest smirk, that was her way of laughing. Eyes never left the code.

“Sir,” She added, calm as ever, “we’ve got eight other identities still on the grid. Government-issued. All valid. All linked to frozen pensions, old insurance claims, untouched trusts... We could squeeze them like goatskin.”

I leaned back, glass of whiskey sweating in my palm, watching the code scroll like scripture.

This was the other battlefield. Not bullets.

Not bombs.

This was war by whispers. Quiet strangulation.

“Let the streets see fire,” I muttered. “But let the banks feel famine.”

Zanesville cracked her knuckles. “Third sweep will route through Istanbul, same as last drop. No paper trail. No algorithm ping.”

I nodded. Jaw tight. Mind colder than frostbite.

“They think I’m losing,” I said slowly. “But I’m just cutting off their air. Quietly.”

She suddenly flipped her screen back toward me. “Prototype funds?” She said, “All green. The ghost senator just signed the final transfer. You’re fully locked.”

I chuckled darkly, flicking ash into the tray. “Bless his heart. May his soul rest in peace... while his name pays for my war.”

Zanesville leaned back, finally blinking. “At this rate, we could fund a small country, boss. Or burn one down.”

I stared at that screen, those blinking rows of names, masks, masks behind masks. All of them fake. But the power? Real.

“Nah,” I said, leaning forward.

My voice dropped. A growl from somewhere deep.

“I’m not funding a country,” I whispered.

“I’m buying revenge for how broke the country made me be.”