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

The cold air in the basement smelled of wet rust and ozone. Lorenzo didn't lower his weapon. The barrel of his shotgun remained aligned with Victor Vance’s withered chest.

"You have five seconds to tell me where the neutralizer is, Vance," Lorenzo said, his voice flat, devoid of humanity. "Or I will turn that wheelchair into scrap metal with you inside it."

Victor Vance didn't flinch. His pale, rheumy eyes blinked slowly behind thick spectacles. "Shoot an old man if it satisfies your Sicilian pride, Lorenzo. But if I die, the automated synthesis lab on the twelfth floor self-destructs instantly. The neutralizer for your little maid doesn't exist in a vial. It must be fresh-brewed every forty-eight hours."

Lorenzo took a slow, calculated step forward. "You bought Don Moretti. You bought the governor. You turned Sophie into an experiment. And now you expect to negotiate?"

"Look at me, boy!" Vance snarled, a sudden burst of venom cracking through his fragile frame. "I built this city’s skyline! I own the pharmaceuticals that keep two million people breathing! And yet, my kidneys are failing. My bone marrow is turning to dust. I have four months to live!"

He leaned forward, his skeletal hands gripping the armrests of his wheelchair. "Jonathan Clark succeeded where every scientist on earth failed. He created an biological elixir that repairs terminal necrosis. But Jonathan wanted to play savior. He wanted to give it to the world for free, starting with his daughter! What a grotesque waste."

"So you hunted him," Lorenzo deduced, piece by piece fitting the puzzle together. "And Jonathan faked his death to protect Sophie, only to realize he couldn't keep her hidden forever."

"Jonathan broke when Vance security raided his home three years ago," Vance sneered. "He made a deal. He promised to deliver Sophie to me when the genetic sequence matured on her twenty-fourth birthday. In exchange, I promised him funding for his own private research colony in South America."

Lorenzo’s stomach turned at the depravity. "He sold his daughter twice."

"Business, Lorenzo. It’s always business," Vance smiled, revealing gold-capped teeth. "Moretti understands that. That’s why Moretti’s men are currently storming the Cathedral catacombs while you stand here playing action hero in my basement."

Lorenzo’s heart felt as if an iron vise had clamped shut around it.

"You think I came here alone to chat?" Vance laughed, a dry, rattling cough escaping his throat. "Jonathan knew you would track him to this hospital. This facility is empty, Lorenzo! It was bait to draw you and your best fighters away from Saint Anne’s Cathedral. At this very moment, Moretti’s men have extracted Sophie from the cryo-chamber. She is on her way to the salt docks."

Before Vance could finish his sentence, Lorenzo slammed the butt of his shotgun into the old man’s face, knocking the wheelchair sideways onto the concrete floor.

Lorenzo hit his tactical radio, his voice roaring like thunder. "Marcello! Luca! Report! Report now!"

Static screamed through the earpiece. Then, through the interference, came the frantic, terrified voice of Sophie herself.