Chapter 7 - THE UNCOVERED DEBT
The silence in the staff dining alcove was heavy, cold, and suffocating.
Lorenzo didn't raise his voice. He didn't reach out to grab her. He simply stood three feet away, his dark eyes pinned onto Elena’s terrified face, absorbing every micro-expression of her panic.
"Elena," Lorenzo spoke again, his baritone dropping an octave, carrying the dark, absolute weight of his authority. "I asked you a question. What man is coming to your apartment?"
Elena swallowed hard, her dry throat making a raspy sound. Tears spilled over her lashes, running down her pale cheeks. She looked at her daughter, who was watching them with wide, confused eyes, clutching her dinner roll against her chest.
"It... it's nothing, Mr. Moretti," Elena lied, her voice cracking. "She's just a child... she gets confused—"
"A three-year-old doesn't invent a man coming into her home to look for hidden food, Elena," Lorenzo interrupted coldly.
He turned his head slightly, offering a sharp, fractional nod to his chief of security, Marco, who was standing by the kitchen entrance.
"Marco," Lorenzo commanded flatly. "Run her address. Check the local precinct logs, loan-shark registries, and West Side collection lists. Now."
Marco immediately pulled an encrypted handheld terminal from his suit jacket, his fingers flying across the glass screen.
Elena’s knees gave out. She slid down the walnut wainscoting until she was crouching on the marble floor, her face buried in her hands, her body shaking with quiet, helpless sobs.
"Please... Mr. Moretti, don't," Elena wept softly from the floor. "He'll hurt her... he promised he'd take her if I didn't have the cash by Friday..."
Thirty seconds passed in complete quiet, broken only by the hum of the hearth and Elena's soft weeping.
Marco stepped forward, looking down at his terminal screen. His face—usually a stone mask—showed a sudden, dark flash of genuine anger. He looked up at Lorenzo.
"Her late husband took out a forty-thousand-dollar illegal loan eighteen months ago from Jimmy 'The Needle' Russo," Marco reported softly, his voice tight. "When her husband skipped town, Russo transferred the debt to her. With interest, he's demanding eighty thousand dollars."
May you like
Lorenzo’s dark eyes narrowed into two slits of liquid fire. "Russo. The crew operating out of Cicero?"
"Yes, boss," Marco confirmed. "And according to the precinct report from two nights ago... Russo’s enforcers kicked her apartment door off its hinges while the kid was sleeping."
