Chapter 5

“I’ve had enough!”

The roar snapped through the room, cutting off my thoughts.

Lorenzo straightened violently, a wineglass clenched in his hand. He hurled it to the floor.

“Crash!”

Glass exploded across the marble.

That sound was a signal.

The family guards stationed by the doors drew their guns not toward any outside threat, but toward the elders seated along the table.

“Lorenzo! What are you doing?!” the consigliere screamed in terror.

“Rat-tat-tat—”

The burst from a submachine gun swallowed his voice whole. Blood erupted from the consigliere’s chest as he toppled backward, chair and body crashing to the floor.

Screams, gunfire, and shattering porcelain filled the room. In an instant, the banquet hall turned into a slaughterhouse.

“Stop it! Lorenzo! Have you lost your mind?!” Don Moretti rose unsteadily, pointing at him, his hand shaking violently.

Lorenzo stepped over the bodies and stopped in front of Don Moretti.

All traces of humility were gone. What remained was the feral gleam of a beast.

“Don Moretti, you’re the one getting old,” Lorenzo said, pulling out a silver handgun.

“Since you can’t bring yourself to deal with Elena, too afraid to break free from the Bernardi family’s grip, I’ll do it for you. From now on, this family belongs to me, Lorenzo.”

“Bang!”

There was no hesitation.

The bullet punched straight through Don Moretti’s forehead. His eyes widened in disbelief as he fell backward, stiff and lifeless.

The man known as the Old Lion died just like that, shot by his own underboss.

I reached for the gun strapped to my thigh, only for two cold gun barrels to slam against the back of my head.

Two guards pinned my shoulders down, forcing me back into my chair.

Lorenzo blew lightly on the smoking muzzle, stepped on Don Moretti’s corpse, and walked toward me.

“Look, Elena.” He lifted my chin with the barrel of his gun, forcing me to meet his eyes. “Now tell me, who’s the trash?”

Sophia scrambled up from the floor.

At some point, a boning knife had appeared in her hand, and she swayed her hips as she came to my side.

“Ms. Bernardi,” Sophia said, tapping my cheek with the flat of the blade, her eyes shining with vicious delight.

“Didn’t you say you trusted me to make the right choice? Well, this is my choice!”

The cold edge slid along my skin, sending a shiver through me.

“Do you want your face carved up before you die, or do you want to die clean?” She mimicked my old tone, “I believe you’ll make the right choice. Right?”

I looked at Lorenzo’s pitch-black muzzle and then at the gleaming knife in Sophia’s hand.

The air reeked of blood, with the elders lying dead or dying.

It was a dead end.

“Go to hell, Ms. Bernardi.” Lorenzo grinned savagely, finger tightening on the trigger.

Sophia raised the knife high.

“Bang!”

The gunshot ripped through the air.

Something warm splattered across my face.

However, it wasn’t my blood.

“Ah!”

A shrill scream tore through the silent hall.

Sophia’s right wrist exploded midair. Shattered bone and flesh sprayed outward as the knife clattered to the floor.

Almost simultaneously, a second shot rang out.

Her right thigh was blown through. She collapsed to her knees like a puppet with its strings cut.

The two shots were so close they sounded like one.

Only a top-tier sniper unit could pull off a kill like that.

The savage grin froze on Lorenzo’s face.

He realized that every “family guard” who’d raised a gun earlier now had a red dot trembling on their forehead.

Unmistakably, the same crimson laser rested squarely between his brows.

“Don’t move unless you want your brain to blow out.”