Chapter 121: One Hell of a Party

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"There’s a bomb. In the building." His eyes sharpened as I explained further. "They tried to take me alive. They said a dude Volpe ordered it and...and I fought them, I escaped and overheard them talking and they said you’re the target. They said it was already set."

"Where?"

"I don’t know."

"Did they give a time?"

"Soon."

"How soon?"

"I don’t know!" My voice broke. "I don’t know, Dracula. They said it was on schedule."

That was it. He turned immediately. "Timothy."

"Sir."

"Start evacuation procedures. Quietly at first. No alarms unless necessary."

Timothy nodded and took off. Lorenzo faced the guards. "Clear the east corridor. Then the west entrance. Move everyone to the street."

His voice remained calm. Too calm. I hated how familiar that calmness was. This was Lorenzo’s world with threats, weapons, blood, death. He knew how to function in chaos while I was still trying to remember how to breathe.

"Alex." I looked at him as he continued. "Stay with me, love."

"I wasn’t planning on wandering off."

His hand slipped into mine. "Good."

We started moving. At first, people didn’t get it and a woman in a silver dress frowned when a guard asked her to leave. "Why? The event isn’t over."

"Ma’am, please proceed to the exit."

"But my husband is still inside."

"He’ll be escorted out."

"This is ridiculous!"

I stared at her. "There’s a damn bomb, you wanna die or something?"

Her face went blank and the guard beside me slowly shut his eyes. I sighed. "Okay, maybe I should’ve phrased that differently."

The woman screamed, and suddenly the ballroom erupted into chaos. People surged toward the exits. Someone dropped a champagne glass. Another person shouted there was a fire. A waiter abandoned his tray.

Lorenzo raised his voice above the din. "Everyone, remain calm! Follow security instructions and move toward the exits!"

Nobody remained calm. Of course they didn’t and apparently, telling several hundred wealthy people that there might be a bomb or a gas leak wasn’t a great way to keep things peaceful.

I grabbed the arm of a man trying to head back toward the ballroom. "My wife is still inside!"

"You need to leave!"

"My wife—"

"Then get a guard to find her!"

He hesitated. I gripped his shoulder. "Go!"

Finally, he moved. Another woman stood frozen beside a table, her eyes darting around as people rushed past. I grabbed her hand. "Come on."

"I—I can’t find my son."

My heart sank. "How old?"

"Eight."

"What’s his name?"

"Ethan."

I turned to the guards. "Find an eight-year-old boy named Ethan. Now."

Two men immediately split off. The woman clutched my arm. "Please."

"We’ll find him." I wasn’t sure if that was true. I didn’t have time to think about it. We kept moving.

Lorenzo was everywhere, issuing commands, pulling people away from blocked corridors, directing guards to different sections of the building. Timothy returned, covered in dust. "West entrance is almost clear."

"How many people?"

"Most of them."

"Most isn’t enough."

"I know, Don. But many of them don’t believe a hotel as rich as this would have a gas leak."

Lorenzo’s gaze flicked toward the ballroom. I followed his look. There were still people inside. Too many. My stomach twisted. "We need to go."

Lorenzo turned to me. "Alex. Now. We don’t know how much time we have left."

I couldn’t argue with that...he took my hand and then we moved.

The corridor to the entrance felt endless. With each second, it seemed louder than the last. My legs were shaking now, and I stumbled once.

Lorenzo caught me right away. "You’re exhausted."

"I know."

"You’re injured."

"I’m aware."

"You need medical attention."

"I’ll add it to my to-do list."

His jaw tightened. Even now, he almost smiled.

Then the sound came. Not loud at first. A deep, strange vibration rolled through the building. I stopped. Lorenzo stopped with me. The world seemed to hold its breath. Then the explosion hit.

The force threw me forward. Lorenzo grabbed me, instinctively placing himself between me and the blast as the whole corridor seemed to shudder beneath us. Heat slammed into us. Glass shattered somewhere behind.

People screamed. The lights went out. For a few seconds, all I could hear was the ringing in my head. Dust filled the air. Someone was crying, someone else was shouting.

Lorenzo’s arms were still around me. I held on. "Lorenzo?!"

"I’m here."

His voice was rough but steady. I looked back. The ballroom was gone. Not entirely, but enough that my brain struggled to process what I was seeing. Smoke billowed through the corridor. Part of the ceiling had collapsed.

Fire flickered through broken walls, glinting off shattered glass and overturned furniture. Some people lay on the ground. Some were moving. Some weren’t.

My stomach churned. "Oh God!"

Lorenzo gripped my face. "Alex."

I looked at him.

"Don’t look." He said firmly.

But I couldn’t help it and I stared. The woman who’d been looking for her son was screaming his name. A guard of Lorenzo’s was dragging an injured man away from the rubble. Someone was calling for help. Another was crying for their husband.

The elegant gala we’d entered less than three hours ago had transformed into a nightmare of smoke, blood, and debris.

Then it hit me. This wasn’t just an attack on Lorenzo. People had died. People who didn’t even know our names, people who had just come for a party.

My hands began to shake harder. "...I did this."

"Alex." His voice was firm. "Look at me. You didn’t plant that bomb."

My lips trembled. "But—"

"You didn’t choose this."

I wanted to believe him, but I couldn’t. Not yet and a siren blared in the distance. Then another. Lorenzo looked toward the street. "Move."

I stared at him. "What?"

"Authorities will be here soon." He took my hand. "We go now."

"But there are still people—"

"Our people are helping."

He pulled me toward the exit. I followed, too drained to argue anymore.

Outside, the night air hit me. It was cold and clean...it almost offensively normal. A black car sat at the curb with the back door open.

Lorenzo pushed me in, and I stumbled into the seat as he climbed in beside me. Timothy got in front, and the car pulled away before I could even fully shut the door.

I turned to the window. The building blazed behind us. Smoke climbed into the night sky, glowing orange against the darkness. Sirens wailed closer. A crowd gathered outside. Emergency lights flashed across the street.

I looked at my hands. They were smeared with blood and dust. It was hard to tell how much was mine. My body had finally run out of adrenaline, and exhaustion crashed over me so suddenly that I felt almost weightless.

Beside me, Lorenzo was quiet. His expression was cold again and calculating. Already thinking about Volpe. About the attack. About who’d ordered it. About what was next.

But his hand found mine. He wrapped his fingers around it and held on.

I didn’t look at him. I just stared through the window as the flaming building shrank behind us.

For once, I had nothing sarcastic or dumb to say. No jokes, no clever comments. Nothing. I sat there, trembling in the quiet darkness of the car, while the place behind us burned and the sound of sirens faded into the distance.