Chapter 4 - Scorched Earth
In Chicago, winter hit the city with brutal force, mirroring the ice in Lorenzo’s chest. Three months had passed since the canceled wedding. Three months of dead ends, burner phones, and untraceable ghosts.
Lorenzo had torn his own organization apart looking for her. He had fired half his security detail for failing to track a woman with one suitcase. But more than that, he had turned his wrath on the Hart family.
Celeste and Vanessa had assumed they could just retreat to their high-society lives. They were wrong. Lorenzo used his legitimate and illegitimate channels to systematically dismantle them. He called in every favor. Within a month, Celeste’s credit lines were frozen due to "mysterious" bank audits. Vanessa was blacklisted from every charity gala, country club, and high-end boutique in the city. When Vanessa tried to sell her story to a tabloid, the publisher—who owed Lorenzo a massive gambling debt—burned the manuscript and threatened to sue her.
They were ruined. Penniless and pariahs. But watching them suffer brought Lorenzo no peace. It didn't bring Elena back.
He sat in his dark office, staring at the engagement ring on his desk. Marco knocked and entered, holding a thin file.
“Boss. I think we found something.”
Lorenzo looked up, his eyes bloodshot. “Show me.”
“She’s good. She didn’t use her cards, didn’t use her name. But the annual property tax for a parcel of land in rural Wisconsin was just paid using a cashier’s check. The property is registered to a blind trust. The beneficiary name on the original trust document from twenty years ago? Anna Rossi.”
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Lorenzo’s heart stopped. Anna Rossi. Elena’s mother.
“Get the car,” Lorenzo said, his voice trembling for the first time in his adult life. “Now.”
