Episode7
598 Words
The safe house was miles from the De Luca estate, buried deep in the woods where screams wouldn’t echo and secrets had space to rot.
Alessia hated it.
The silence clawed at her nerves. The way Lorenzo watched her clawed at her heart.
He hadn’t touched her since the night of the flash drive. Not a kiss. Not a whisper. Just business. Cold, calculated protection. She was a package he needed alive. Nothing more.
But the way his eyes burned into her when he thought she wasn’t looking?
That was something else.
Tonight, though, the air was different. He was tense. Coiled like a predator. The phone call had come just before midnight. One name, whispered with venom:
Ricci.
A name from Lorenzo’s childhood. A name buried in loyalty. A man who held his father’s trust.
Now revealed as the one who sold him out.
Lorenzo stood by the fire, jaw clenched, pistol resting on the mantel.
“Ricci knew everything. My father’s movements. His deals. Even the night he was killed.”
Alessia stepped closer. “Then it was him.”
“It was all of them,” he growled. “But Ricci opened the door.”
Her voice dropped. “What will you do?”
He turned to her slowly, the firelight dancing in his cold eyes. “Kill him.”
She didn’t flinch. “When?”
“Now.”
Two hours later.
They moved like shadows through the abandoned warehouse, each footstep echoing with vengeance.
Dano waited inside, standing over a trembling man bound to a chair.
Ricci.
His once-proud figure now slouched, blood smeared across his shirt. His eyes lifted when Lorenzo approached — and widened in horror when he saw who followed behind him.
Alessia.
“You brought her?” Ricci hissed, spitting blood. “She’s the enemy.”
Lorenzo knelt, leveling the gun to his old friend’s face.
“No. You are.”
Ricci laughed bitterly. “This isn’t justice. This is weakness. You’re letting a woman turn your empire into ashes.”
Alessia stepped forward before Lorenzo could fire. “You killed his father.”
“I did what needed to be done!” Ricci shouted. “De Luca was slipping — the Romano deal would’ve saved us!”
Lorenzo’s hand didn’t tremble. But his voice did.
“You killed the only man I ever trusted.”
“And he trusted me more than you,” Ricci sneered. “That’s the part that hurts most, isn’t it? He chose me.”
One shot rang out.
Ricci’s words died with him.
Blood soaked the floor.
They didn’t speak on the drive back.
Not until Lorenzo pulled off the road near a lake, shutting off the engine. He sat in silence, fingers gripping the wheel.
“I thought killing him would fix it,” he said, voice raw. “But it just made the hole bigger.”
Alessia didn’t say anything. She reached out, took his hand — and for the first time, he let her.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Lorenzo turned toward her, his mask cracking. “Why do you stay, Alessia? After everything?”
Her heart stuttered. “Because leaving you would be a lie too big to live with.”
The kiss came hard. Messy. Desperate.
But it was real.
Back at the safehouse…
They didn’t notice the black car that slowed a mile away.
They didn’t see the eyes watching from the trees.
They didn’t hear the whisper over the phone: “Target located. She’s with him. Proceed?”
They didn’t know the hunters were already here.
- Writer
