Semua Bab Captive To The Mafia Lord: Bab 191 - Bab 200

Lorenzo's POVI don't know how long we stood there in the hallway, him shaking against my chest, me holding on like letting go might undo it somehow. A baby. After everything last night had thrown at us — after a severed head and a motel shootout and a photograph of two infants that had shattered Dante's whole understanding of himself — there was, impossibly, this. Something small and unbroken, growing in the middle of all of it."Say something," Jovan finally whispered against my shirt. "You've gone quiet and it's scaring me.""I'm not scared." My voice came out rougher than I meant it to. "I'm just trying to figure out how something this good is supposed to fit inside a day that started with a decapitated head on our porch."He laughed, wet and startled, and pulled back to look at me, eyes red but something lighter moving underneath the fear now. "That's a very you way to say you're happy.""I am happy." I pressed my forehead to his. "Terrified. Furious that he already knew before w

Lorenzo's POVThe page shook in my hands before I'd even read the first line, the wind off the water catching the edges, and Jovan pressed closer against my side like he could steady it just by being there.It was a name. A single name, typed, no explanation attached — and under it, a date, and a badge number, and three words that made the whole pier go silent around me.Still active. Protected."I don't understand," I said, and my voice came out thinner than I wanted it to. "Who is this?""The detective who's been quietly burying every case that ever got close to your father's arrangements," he said. "For over fifteen years. He's the reason Derek's information was so dangerous in the first place — because the moment it got loose, it would've exposed exactly how deep this goes, and exactly who's been covering for your family the entire time." His eyes held mine, steady now, none of the earlier performance left in them. "He's also the reason my mother never got justice. She went to him

Lorenzo's POVThe drive home was quiet in a way that felt earned instead of heavy. Jovan had his head tipped against the window, eyes half-closed, one hand resting over his stomach like he still hadn't quite let the news settle into something real yet. I kept glancing over at every red light, just to make sure he was still there, still breathing, still mine."Stop staring," he murmured, without opening his eyes. "I can feel you doing it.""Can't help it." I reached over, laced my fingers through his free hand. "Yesterday I thought I was going to lose you a dozen different ways. Today I find out I almost lost two of you without even knowing it."That got his eyes open, soft, tired, something glowing underneath the exhaustion. "We're okay," he said. "All three of us. For now.""For now," I agreed, because after this week, promising forever felt like tempting something I didn't want to tempt. "But I meant what I said on the pier. This ends properly. No more boxes. No more notes. Whatever

Lorenzo's POVThe words hung in the air long after he'd said them, ugly and impossible and somehow, underneath all the noise in my chest, not impossible at all."You're lying," I said, but it came out thin, unconvincing even to my own ears."Am I?" Rourke's voice stayed infuriatingly calm. "Your father had a bad heart for years, Lorenzo. Everyone knew it. Easy story to tell, easy cause of death to write down, no questions asked from a family that already had plenty of reasons not to invite a real autopsy." A pause, deliberate, cruel. "I was the one who signed off on it. I was also the one who got a very generous payment a week later from someone who wanted that story to stick."My knees went weak enough that I had to brace a hand against the half-painted wall beside me. "Who paid you.""That's the conversation I'm offering you, if you're smart about the next few days." His tone sharpened, finally, the pleasantness dropping away. "You've got a journalist sniffing around my name. You've

Lorenzo's POVWe didn't finish painting that day.Jovan sat across from me at a table still wearing a drop cloth, both of us too rattled to pretend the afternoon belonged to the restaurant anymore. I'd called Dante the second I could trust my voice not to shake, and he'd arrived within twenty minutes, Lena right behind him, the four of us clustered around that half-painted room like it was the only safe harbor left in the city."Say it again," Dante said. "Slowly. Because I need to hear it a second time before I let myself believe it.""Rourke says my father didn't die of natural causes. Says he was paid to call it a heart attack. Says he'll tell me who actually did it — if I bury the investigation into him." I rubbed both hands down my face. "Friday. That's his deadline.""That's not a confession," Lena said slowly, working it through out loud the way she always did, sharp and methodical even rattled. "That's leverage. He's trying to trade one truth for your silence on a different on