Chapter 8 - The Statement of Intent
Ten minutes later, the alley outside the pharmacy was cleared.
Two sleek black Navigators pulled up to the curb, their emergency flashers cutting red-and-blue streaks through the falling sleet.
Lorenzo stood up from the floor. He had restored his composure, though his eyes remained bloodshot and dark. He turned to Marco, who was holding the blue plastic bag containing the infant Tylenol and formula.
"Pay the pharmacist five thousand dollars," Lorenzo commanded flatly. "Tell him if anyone asks who came into his store today, he remembers nothing."
"Yes, Boss," Marco said, stepping back inside the shop.
Lorenzo turned to Elena.
She was standing near the door, her hands wrapped tightly around Sophia, her posture defensive again now that the initial shock had passed. She looked at the black SUVs, at the dark tinted windows, at the four armed men standing guard along the sidewalk.
"Miss Vance," Lorenzo said, his voice returning to that low, resonant baritone. "My car is warm. We are going to my doctor’s private clinic in Upper Manhattan to have Sophia examined."
Elena looked at him, then at the open door of the middle Navigator.
"I... I gave you your daughter, Mr. Moretti," Elena whispered, her chin trembling against the cold wind. "You have her back. She’s safe. Please... just let me go back to my work."
Lorenzo looked at her with an expression she could not quite read—a mixture of deep, intense scrutiny and something that looked dangerously like respect.
"Go back to your work?" Lorenzo asked, taking a step toward her. "To the Chatzsworth? Where you earn twelve dollars an hour cleaning rooms for men who don't know your name?"
"It's my life," she said, her dark eyes flashing with a sudden, quiet defiance that surprised even herself. "I don't belong in your world, Mr. Moretti. I don't know who took your baby, and I don't want to know. I found her in a dumpster, I kept her warm, and I gave her back to you. That's all."
Lorenzo reached into his coat pocket.
Elena flinched, stepping back an inch.
Lorenzo didn't pull out a gun or a bundle of bills. He pulled out the thin platinum chain with the lion crest—the chain Elena had tucked inside her brassiere before leaving her apartment.
Elena’s face drained of color. "How did you..."
"Matteo swept your basement an hour ago," Lorenzo said softly, holding the chain between his fingers so the rubies in the lion’s eyes caught the streetlights. "He found the onesie you washed. He found the towel you used to keep her head dry. And I know you had this chain in your possession for twelve hours."
He took another step closer, until he was standing six inches from her.
"A woman who wanted to sell this child would have taken this chain to a pawn shop in Jamaica and gotten eight thousand dollars for the metal alone," Lorenzo said, his eyes burning into hers. "A woman who wanted to ransom this child would have called my office at six in the morning. A woman who cared only about herself would have left that dumpster lid closed and kept walking."
He reached out, his long fingers gently touching the lapel of her wet wool coat.
"You took my child out of a pile of garbage," Lorenzo said, his voice dropping into a register that made her heart stop. "You wrapped her in your own clothes. You spent your last fifty dollars buying her milk while you were freezing in the rain. You saved the life of the only thing on this earth that I love."
He opened the door of the Lincoln Navigator himself, holding it wide against the sleet.
"You are not going back to the Chatzsworth, Elena," Lorenzo said, using her first name for the first time. "You are coming with me."
"And if I say no?" she asked, her voice barely audible above the wind.
Lorenzo looked at her, a faint, dangerous shadow of a smile touching the corner of his dark mouth.
"I am Lorenzo Moretti," he said quietly. "Nobody says no to me. But for you... I am asking."
Elena looked down at Sophia, who was sound asleep against her chest, warm and peaceful despite the storm raging around them.
May you like
She looked up at Lorenzo’s pale grey eyes.
She stepped into the car.
