Chapter 10 - The False Victory
Celeste refused to say another word, permanently sealing her lips with a defiant, bloody smile.
Lorenzo knocked her completely unconscious with the butt of his pistol and dragged her back to their stolen car.
The police sirens were wailing loudly in the distance, growing closer and more dangerous by the second.
"We need to disappear," Lorenzo told Evelyn urgently as he loaded the hostage and Celeste into the vehicle.
They drove smoothly to Lorenzo's most secure penthouse fortress in the very heart of downtown Chicago.
The elite guards stationed there immediately secured the perimeter and dragged Celeste directly to the holding cells.
Lorenzo poured a generous glass of expensive bourbon, his hands finally steady after the night of absolute madness.
He looked over at Evelyn, who was staring quietly out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the glittering city skyline.
"You are completely safe now, Evelyn," Lorenzo said softly, walking over to stand right beside her.
"You have my absolute word that no one will ever hunt you or your sister again."
He gently took her small hand, a rare, genuine warmth completely breaking through his icy exterior.
Evelyn smiled up at him, feeling a strange, intoxicating spark of attraction toward the highly dangerous mafia boss.
She had miraculously survived the night, saved his life twice, and finally earned her place at his side.
The terrible war was over, and they had definitively won.
Later that night, while Lorenzo was sleeping exhausted in his master bedroom, Evelyn walked quietly into his private study to find a phone charger.
She opened his heavy mahogany desk drawer and quickly noticed a thick, leather-bound dossier sitting near the back.
Curiosity got the better of her, and she opened the heavy cover to casually glance at the first page.
It was a highly detailed surveillance photograph of herself, taken weeks before she ever started working at the restaurant.
She flipped the page with trembling hands and saw a psychological profile detailing exactly how to manipulate her into delivering a warning note.
The handwriting in the margins of the file perfectly matched the desperate scrawl on the bomb warning napkin.
Lorenzo had personally orchestrated the entire assassination attempt on himself just to legally execute his rivals.
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And the final page of the dossier was a hit order, dated for tomorrow morning, bearing a single chilling instruction.
It read, "Eliminate the waitress before she realizes she was my pawn."
