Chapter 19 - The New Order
The safe house on the South Side was an unassuming brick warehouse disguised as an abandoned meat-packing plant, surrounded by razor wire and high-voltage security fences. At four o’clock in the morning, under the cover of a thick, freezing lake fog, two armored Vance SUVs breached the front gates without slowing down, slamming through the rusted chain-link doors and coming to a screeching halt inside the loading bay.
Lorenzo stepped out of the lead vehicle first. He had shed his tactical Kevlar, wearing a clean black suit coat draped over his bandaged left arm. In his right hand, he carried Uncle Dominic’s brass Zippo lighter; tucked into his waistband was his customized Colt .45. Behind him, Dante and six elite Vance enforcers fanned out across the warehouse floor, their tactical flashlights cutting through the darkness.
Inside the glass-walled overseer’s office above the loading floor sat Victor Thorne. He was surrounded by four heavily armed Commission bodyguards, his laptop open on the desk, displaying static monitors where the Lake Geneva compound’s thermal feeds had gone dead an hour prior.
When Victor saw Lorenzo walking across the warehouse floor below—alive, unbowed, and accompanied by his execution squad—the sixty-year-old traitor didn't try to run. He knew every exit in Chicago was closed to him now.
Dante’s men dispatched the four Commission bodyguards on the metal stairs with four suppressed, synchronized shots that echoed like dry twigs snapping in the cavernous warehouse.
Lorenzo walked up the metal stairs alone. He pushed open the door to the overseer’s office and stepped inside, closing it quietly behind him.
Victor sat behind the desk, his hands resting flat on the metal surface. He looked ten years older than he had at the yacht club six months ago; his immaculate hair was graying at the roots, his skin sallow, his tailored suit wrinkled and loose around his frame.
“You survived again, Lorenzo,” Victor said quietly, his voice devoid of emotion, sounding like a hollow echo in a tomb. “You always survive. Like a cockroach in a nuclear winter.”
“You shouldn't have targeted the child, Victor,” Lorenzo said, walking over to the desk and sitting on the edge of the metal desk pad, looking down at the man who had betrayed his family for three decades. “You could have taken the money in Zurich and lived out your pathetic days in the mountains. But you couldn't let go of your hatred for my bloodline.”
“Your bloodline is a disease, Lorenzo!” Victor snarled, sudden, venomous rage breaking through his calm facade. He slammed his fist onto the desk, his eyes wide and bloodshot. “For forty years, I cleaned the blood off your grandfather’s shoes! I managed the books while your uncle Dominic ruined innocent lives for sport! And Matteo—dear, brilliant Matteo—he was going to report my embezzlement to the federal authorities just to clean up the family name! You Vances think you own the world by divine right! You deserved to burn!”
Lorenzo looked at him without a single trace of anger or pity. In his mind, Victor Thorne was no longer a master conspirator or a rival; he was simply a rabid animal that needed to be put down so the neighborhood could sleep in peace.
Lorenzo reached into his pocket and pulled out Matteo’s blood-stained silver pocket watch—the watch the Commission had sent him as a threat twelve hours prior. He set it gently on the metal desk directly in front of Victor’s hands.
“My brother didn't die because he was going to report you to the feds, Victor,” Lorenzo said softly, leaning forward until his amber eyes filled Victor’s entire field of vision. “He died because he was coming back to Chicago that night to relieve you of your duties and give you a pension. I found his private journals in the floorboards of his apartment last week. He knew you were stealing from us for ten years, Victor. But he didn't want to kill you. He wrote that you were an old man who had served our father well, and he wanted to let you retire in peace.”
Victor stared down at the battered silver watch on the desk. His lips parted, his breath catching in his throat as the absolute, crushing weight of his own pointless, paranoid betrayal finally dawned on him. He had murdered the only Vance who had ever shown him mercy.
“No...” Victor whispered, his trembling fingers reaching out to touch the silver casing of the watch. “No... that’s a lie. You’re lying to me, Lorenzo...”
Lorenzo didn't answer. He stood up from the desk, walked to the door of the office, and looked back at Victor Thorne one last time.
“The Commission in New York will receive your body in a cedar box by noon tomorrow, Victor,” Lorenzo said quietly. “With my compliments.”
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Lorenzo stepped out onto the metal landing and closed the door. He looked down at Dante Russo, who was waiting on the warehouse floor below with a twenty-gallon canister of industrial kerosene.
“Burn it,” Lorenzo ordered coldly as he walked down the stairs toward the waiting SUV. “Burn it to the foundation. I don't want a single brick left standing.”
