Chapter 6 - The devil’s embrace

“Everyone, be on alert. We’re under attack—arm yourselves and follow my lead,” Lorenzo’s voice boomed through the courtyard like a gunshot, calm but deadly.

Elena froze where she stood, her breath caught in her throat.

Who would dare attack the Black Orchid?

Around her, the entire DeLuca family snapped into action. Chairs screeched against the marble floor, hidden compartments were flung open, and weapons emerged from beneath tables, behind paintings, under dresses, and suit jackets. The yard transformed from party to war zone in seconds.

“Elena!” a voice hissed beside her.

She turned to see Isabella striding toward her, already gripping a sleek black pistol. “Stay with me. Lorenzo said to keep you safe.”

Elena blinked, adrenaline surging. “What the hell is happening?”

Isabella moved quickly, nudging her toward the door. “Rival gang. We’ve been expecting this. Just not tonight.”

At the front of the yard, Lorenzo was in lethal control. He moved with the quiet precision of someone born for violence. He crept to the main door, peered through the peephole, then turned slightly.

“Matteo,” he said.

Without needing more, Matteo tossed a cylindrical object through the air. Lorenzo caught it cleanly—a grenade.

“Elena, cover your ears,” Isabella muttered.

Lorenzo cracked the door open, tossed the grenade out, and slammed it shut.

Three seconds.

Two.

Boom.

The walls shook with the force of the explosion. Screams rang out from outside, and smoke began to seep through the cracks.

“Now!” Lorenzo barked, yanking the door open and storming forward, gun blazing.

Gunfire erupted as the DeLuca members followed him into the smoke, their formation flawless, returning shots with brutal accuracy.

Isabella looked to Elena, her expression unreadable. “Are you ready to see what family really looks like?”

Without waiting for a reply, she shoved open the side door and dragged Elena into the fight.

Smoke coiled in the air like ghosts rising from hell. The heavy scent of gunpowder and blood choked Elena the moment she stepped into the club.

The night was loud—gunshots cracking like thunder, screams piercing through, bodies hitting the ground with dull thuds.

Elena ducked instinctively as a bullet whizzed past her shoulder, embedding itself into the wall behind. Isabella yanked her behind a table, then returned fire without flinching.

“Stay low!” she barked.

Elena peeked over the edge of the table—and that’s when she saw him.

Lorenzo.

A monster in a suit. A phantom of war.

He was in the middle of the chaos, fighting like the devil had unleashed him. One hand held a gun, his other a dagger. He shot with unerring precision, each bullet a death sentence.

A rival thug charged at him from the left—Lorenzo didn’t blink. He ducked the swing of a metal pipe, slammed the guy against a wall, and, with terrifying ease, twisted the man’s head until it snapped with a sickening crack.

Elena’s breath caught. The brutality of it. The cold finality.

He didn’t hesitate.

He didn’t even look back.

Another enemy lunged toward him, screaming. Lorenzo stabbed him in the gut, yanked the blade out, and turned to shoot another charging from the rear.

It was savage. Efficient. Inhuman.

Elena pressed herself against the table, her heart thudding painfully in her chest.

This is who he is, she thought.

Lorenzo DeLuca was exactly who they said he was—brutal, deadly, and utterly unforgiving.

Watching him tear through bodies, Elena felt the chill seep into her bones. He fought like a man possessed, no hesitation, no mercy—just precision and savagery.

And for a fleeting moment, as she saw him drive a blade straight into a man’s chest and twist, she thought of her father.

Her stomach churned.

She remembered the day she saw her father’s lifeless body—the stab wounds, the blood, the way it soaked into the white of his shirt like ink. Multiple wounds. Multiple statements. Not just murder—a message.

Only a man as brutal as Lorenzo could have done that.

He must have killed her father with this brutality she is seeing now.

A wave of nausea rose inside her. She stumbled back, turned away from the table, and retched violently on the floor. Her body trembled, though not from fear, but at the thought of her late father.

Isabella, still firing from behind their cover, glanced over and let out a snort.

“Poor you,” she said with a mocking smile. “Guess this really is your first time seeing war.”

Elena wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, her expression hardening as she slowly stood up.

A slow smirk curved her lips. Si tan solo supieras(if only she knew, she thought to herself.

One of the attackers spotted Elena as she rose to her feet, dazed and distracted. He raised his gun and fired.

Elena never saw it coming.

Isabella was locked in a vicious fistfight just a few feet away, too far to intervene. But Lorenzo saw everything. In one swift, fluid motion, he launched himself across the battlefield toward her.

“Elena!” he barked.

He collided with her just in time, shoving her to the ground as the bullet sliced through the air where her head had been a second before. Lorenzo fired back mid-fall—his shot clean, lethal. The man dropped like a stone.

Elena hit the ground hard, the air whooshing out of her lungs. Lorenzo landed on top of her, his body shielding hers as the world raged around them.

But in that second, everything else went silent.

Their eyes locked.

Elena could smell the sweat on his skin, the faint scent of his cologne. His face hovered inches from hers, that chiseled jawline dusted with a well-trimmed beard, his dark eyes cold and intense.

His lips—firm, serious, yet infuriatingly soft-looking—were so close, Elena could feel the warmth of his breath. Her heart thundered in her chest, wild and unrelenting.

How could a man this devastatingly handsome be so deadly? she thought, her breath catching as her eyes fluttered shut.

Just for a moment, amidst the violence, there was stillness.

And he was all she could feel.