his sanctuary

Present-day

Bang!

The sound of the gunshot rang in his ears and his world turned red.

Literally. He was covered in blood. His father’s blood.

The man whom he loved and cherished the most in the world fell over, his weight heavy on top of him. He was about to turn him over, when another shot fired through, hitting his father in the arm.

He quickly pulled his father to the side in the hope of shielding him from further bullets, but it was too late. His father was losing too much blood. He tried to suppress the blood flow, but it wasn’t working. The damage was already done. His father was on his last dying breath.

“Protect your brother.”

He nodded his head.

“I will, Dad. I’ll protect Gian.”

He watched his father speak, each word becoming tougher with each breath he took. He leaned close, hearing those last few words, so powerful, they engraved deep in his soul.

“Reform the clan. I love you, son.”

And his father’s body went limp.

Pain pierced at his heart, like a thousand knives stabbing into him. He could no longer suppress the tears from flowing. He screamed, gripping the body of his father until his knuckles turned white, begging him to wake up again.

But his father was gone. Forever.

A gust of wind picked up. He watched in horror as his father’s body disintegrated into nothing but dust. Suddenly, a rose bush sprouted from beneath the earth and a single red flower bloomed before his eyes.

He plucked the rose, when suddenly the earth cracked open beneath his feet, plummeting him into the inferno pit below.

With the single rose in hand, he was burned alive by the flames of hell.

Lorenzo screamed, and he jolted awake, gasping for air.

“Lorenzo!”

He startled, his eyes wide at the sound of a woman’s voice calling his name. He braced himself, his eyes blazing like a lion ready to attack, until he registered the face of the woman staring back at him with frightful eyes, and then he remembered where he was.

This was his bedroom. This was his penthouse. This was his safe place. And she was…

“Miranda.”

He blinked, recognizing his mistress.

Fuck! It was only a dream. The feeling was so surreal, he could still feel the heat of the flames burning his skin.

But was it really a dream?

He sighed, roughly combing his fingers through his hair in frustration. It was a nightmare, a reality where he had to relive over and over again the event that had happened that night, when he had witnessed his father getting shot. It was one of their last deals before fully reforming into a legitimate company. But that last deal had cost his father his life.

“Lorenzo. What was that? You scared me,” Miranda spoke again, as if pissed off at him for waking her up.

When she didn’t get an apology from him, she changed tactic, placing her head on his shoulder.

He shifted and her head slipped off. She muttered something in distaste again.

He didn’t care. He was agitated. He needed her gone. He hated people seeing him in this state, when he was at his most vulnerable.

“You should go,” he said, rolling out of bed into a sitting position.

“But, Lorenzo…”

The feel of her soft hand on his back awakened something fierce within him, and he snapped.

“I said get out. Now!”

Miranda was startled at his change in demeanor. She eyed him in horror, her face etched with fright.

She knew what she had gotten into when she had decided to become his mistress. People didn’t call him Boss for no reason. He was the son of Eugene Lorenzo, the most fearsome man in all of Chicago. And now that his father had passed on, he had taken over that role.

Miranda had every right to fear him.

He didn’t know how long he stayed in that position, his head buried between his hands, until he heard the soft click of the door, an indication that he was finally alone.

He lifted his head and eyed his surroundings. His room was a fucking mess. His clothes were everywhere.

They had sex last night, in celebration of being one step closer to becoming a legitimate company. Just like what his father had always wanted. And he was happy. So fucking pleased.

Until he went to bed and had that fucking nightmare again.

Fuck! He didn’t want to relive that memory. It was hell for him when the one man who had brought light into his life had died. He could only cope because his younger brother, Gian, was there beside him. It had taken him over six months before he could fully function again.

And now that nightmare had come back to haunt him.

He felt stifled. The room seemed to close in on him. He fought the feeling, but each breath just exacerbated the symptom even more.

He needed to get out of here. He needed to find fresh air.

He grabbed his robe and escaped to the one place he could relax.

His rooftop garden.

Standing at almost one thousand feet up in the air, at the top of the Lorenzo Corp building, this was his sanctuary.