Page 12 of Obsidian Devotion

5

Lorenzo

Bloodneverquitewashesout from under your fingernails. Not completely. No matter how hard you scrub, traces remain invisible to everyone but you.

I stare at my hands as Olivia paces my office, her heels clicking a frantic rhythm against the hardwood floor. The door has barely closed behind Sofia, but already I can feel the absence of her sharp wit, the challenge in her eyes.

"Are you even listening to me, Lorenzo?" Olivia snaps, dragging my attention back to the crisis at hand.

"Gabriel is in witness protection," I repeat flatly. "With a federal agency."

"Not just any agency." She leans across my desk. "International. Beyond our reach, beyond our influence."

The implications sink in like a blade between my ribs. Gabriel. My protégé. My mistake.

"How reliable is this information?" I keep my voice measured, controlled. Leaders don't panic.Ican’t afford to panic.

"Impeccable. My contact at Interpol confirmed it this morning." Olivia runs a hand through her hair. "He's offering them everything, Lorenzo. Everything."

I rise slowly, moving to the window that overlooks the pulsing lights of my club below. Somewhere down there, Sofia is mixing drinks, charming patrons with that razor-sharp smile that reveals nothing while promising everything.

"He won't live long enough to testify." The words come out cold, detached.

Olivia laughs bitterly. "Did you miss the part about international protection? This isn't some local cop we can bribe or threaten. These people are untouchable."

"Everyone is touchable." I turn to face her. "Everyone has a price or a weakness. Often both."

"This isn't one of your operations," she hisses. "Your specialty is breaking bones and smuggling guns, not espionage."

"Gabriel knows me," I whisper. "He knows how I think, how I operate. That makes him dangerous."

"It makes him deadly," she corrects. "If they build a case with his testimony—"

"They won't." I move to the bar, pouring myself another whiskey. I think of Sofia's slender fingers placing the glass on my desk earlier, the way she intentionally avoided touching me. "Tonight. We move tonight."

Olivia stills. "You have a plan?"

"I always have a plan." The lie comes easily. I don’t have a plan, but I’ll come up with one. "We can't let him talk."

"And how do you propose to extract someone from federal witness protection?" Olivia crosses her arms. "Even father isn't sure how to approach this."

The mention of our father tightens the knot in my chest. "Father knows?"

"Matteo told him this afternoon."

Of course he did. Even though he's retired, father still demands to know what’s going on in all aspects of our lives and businesses.

"Father doesn't need to concern himself with this." I drain my glass. "I created this problem. I'll solve it."

Olivia studies me, her expression softening slightly. "Gabriel was my friend too, you know. Before..."

Before I took him under my wing. Before I showed him the darker sides of our business. Before he betrayed us all.

"He stopped being our friend the moment he sold us out," I say, cutting her off. "Now he's just a liability."

"And what about his family? His daughter?”

An image flashes through my mind—Gabriel's little girl at our Christmas party last year, sitting on my lap while I explained how the model train set worked. Her tiny hand in mine, trusting.

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