The Socialite Drenched The Maid In Champagne — Until The Mafia Boss Saw Who She Was Shielding

Darkness swallowed the room, but Lorenzo’s instincts were forged in shadows.

Before the ceiling tile could even hit the floor, Lorenzo lunged across the desk, grabbing Sophie by the waist and pulling her violently toward the reinforced concrete corner of the room. A split second later, a heavy thud shook the Persian rug where Sophie had just been standing.

A silhouette dropped to its feet with feline agility, the faint glint of night-vision optics glowing eerie green in the pitch-black room. A silenced firearm hissed twice into the darkness, the rounds tearing through the leather executive chair where Lorenzo had sat moments before.

"Sophie, stay down!" Lorenzo roared, firing three blind rounds toward the muzzle flash.

The intruder grunted in pain as one of the bullets found flesh, tumbling backward over the mahogany coffee table. Lorenzo pushed Sophie behind a heavy steel filing cabinet and moved forward with lethal precision, but the intruder was fast. A smoke grenade was detonated on the floor, hissing violently as thick, acrid gray fog instantly flooded the chamber.

Sophie covered her mouth, coughing as the caustic fumes burned her throat. Through the haze, she heard the heavy metallic groan of the study’s rear emergency exit door being forced open from the inside.

"Lorenzo!" Sophie cried out, scrambling on her knees across the floor.

"I’m here!" Lorenzo’s voice called through the smoke. He grabbed her arm, lifting her gently to her feet and pulling her out into the hallway, where the emergency red backup lights had finally flickered to life.

His face was streaked with soot, his eyes burning with an incandescent rage. In his left hand, he held a torn piece of black tactical fabric he had ripped from the intruder’s uniform during the struggle. Sewn into the collar of the fabric was a small, polished silver crest: a crowned serpent coiled around a dagger.

Lorenzo’s breath caught in his throat. His knuckles turned white around the grip of his gun.

"Lorenzo, what is that crest?" Sophie asked, catching her breath as she wiped tears from her eyes caused by the smoke. "My father mentioned a silver crest right before the video cut out!"

Lorenzo looked at her, his voice trembling with a mixture of shock and sheer fury. "This belongs to the Corvo Syndicate. They are the oldest bloodline in Palermo. Ten years ago, my older half-brother, Marcello, was banished from our family after attempting to poison our father. We believed he was killed in an offshore explosion in the Mediterranean."

"He didn't die," Sophie said, the realization hitting her like a freight train. "He survived. Lorenzo, the woman who poured champagne on me at that party... the one who tried to poison Isabella... she wasn't acting out of jealousy. She was working for Marcello!"

Before Lorenzo could respond, Marco came running down the corridor, his shirt torn and his arm bleeding from a graze wound. "Boss! The attackers have retreated from the east perimeter, but it was a diversion! They didn't come to kill you!"

Lorenzo grabbed Marco by the lapel, his voice terrifyingly calm. "What did they take?"

Marco swallowed hard, his eyes filled with dread. "They breached the upper medical wing, sir. They took your mother."