Chapter 4 - The Puppet Master
The ironworks facility on Staten Island was a rusting monster of steel and concrete, looming over the dark waters of the Arthur Kill strait. Fog rolled off the bay, wrapping the industrial graveyard in a thick, choking blanket.
Lorenzo stood on the edge of the perimeter fence, watching the compound through night-vision binoculars.
He hadn't come alone. Expecting a mafia boss to show up alone to a hostage exchange was the foolish mistake of amateurs. Nina and three of her top mercenaries were positioned on the surrounding rooftops, their long-range rifles trained on every visible entry point.
"I have eyes on four guards on the lower catwalks," Nina reported through Lorenzo’s earpiece. "Two more near the main crane. Victor is inside the primary smelting room. Lorenzo... there's a second party here."
Lorenzo paused, his hand on his weapon. "Who?"
"A convoy of luxury sedans arrived ten minutes ago. Blacked-out windows. High-end security detail. This isn't just Victor."
Lorenzo’s jaw tightened. "Identify them."
"Scanning now... wait. Lorenzo, you aren't going to believe this. The head of the security detail... that’s Don Carmine Moretti’s personal guard."
Carmine Moretti.
The head of the Moretti crime family—the oldest, most powerful rival family in New York. A man Lorenzo had sat across from at peace summits for a decade. A man who had attended Isabella’s memorial just hours ago, shedding crocodile tears and offering Lorenzo his deepest condolences.
The pieces instantly clicked together in Lorenzo’s mind with horrifying precision.
Moretti hadn't just wanted to destroy Lorenzo; he wanted to dismantle the DeLuca empire from the inside out. By using Victor to fake the baby’s death and murder Isabella, Moretti had broken Lorenzo’s spirit, leaving the DeLuca family vulnerable and distracted while Victor slowly funneled control of the docks and narcotics routes to Moretti. And the child was the ultimate bargaining chip—if Lorenzo ever discovered the truth, Moretti could use her to force Lorenzo to surrender his entire empire before eliminating him.
"Change of plans, Nina," Lorenzo whispered cold bloodedly into his comms. "Do not shoot to kill unless necessary. I want Carmine Moretti alive. I want him to watch everything he built crumble."
Lorenzo breached the side entrance of the ironworks, sliding past rusted machinery like a phantom. He moved through the darkness with silent, lethal efficiency, dropping two Moretti guards before they even realized the shadows had come alive.
He reached the upper gantry overlooking the central smelting floor.
Down below, bathed in the orange glow of halogen floodlights, stood Victor Vance and Don Carmine Moretti, flanked by eight heavily armed guards.
And in the center of the floor sat a high chair. Sitting in it was a tiny girl with curly dark hair, wearing a white sweater, playing calmly with a silver spoon.
Lorenzo’s heart stopped.
There she was. Eight months old. She had Isabella's delicate features, her soft brown eyes, her gentle expression. She was real. She was breathing.
His daughter.
"Are you sure he'll come alone?" Carmine Moretti’s raspy, elderly voice echoed off the steel walls below. He smoothed the lapels of his expensive cashmere coat. "Lorenzo DeLuca is not a foolish man, Victor. If he suspects a setup, he will bring an army."
"He doesn't care about an army anymore, Don Carmine," Victor scoffed, holding a high-caliber revolver. "The man is broken. He's been living in a graveyard for almost a year. When I told him his daughter was alive, he lost whatever brain cells he had left. He’ll come running like a beaten dog."
"Is that right, Victor?"
Lorenzo’s voice echoed down from the darkness of the rafters above, cold, heavy, and dripping with absolute authority.
Every guard down below instantly snapped their weapons upward, aiming frantically into the dark girders.
May you like
Carmine Moretti stepped back, his eyes widening in shock. "Lorenzo!"
"You always were a terrible judge of character, Victor," Lorenzo said as he stepped out onto the narrow metal catwalk directly above them, holding a small detonator in his hand. "And you, Carmine... you should have stayed at the memorial. The food was better."
