Chapter 1
The dog bowl remained on the carpet after everyone else stopped moving.
Vittorio Romano stood in the middle of the breakfast room with Lucy pressed against his chest.
His daughter was so small that one of his hands covered almost the entire back of her torn shirt.
She would not look at Bianca.
She would not look at Marcus either.
Her face stayed buried beneath Vittorio’s jaw.
Emma Clark stood near the doorway clutching her phone.
Marcus groaned beneath the collapsed antique map rack.
Bianca sat against the leather ottoman with one hand pressed to her cheek.
“You hit me,” she whispered.
Vittorio looked down at Lucy.
Then he looked back at Bianca.
“Yes.”
Bianca’s fear disappeared beneath anger.
“You’re going to destroy everything because a child had a tantrum?”
Emma’s head snapped toward her.
Lucy tightened her arms around Vittorio.
That was enough.
Vittorio turned toward the bodyguards.
“Take Marcus to the library.”
Marcus laughed weakly.
“You think you can lock me in a room?”
“No.”
Vittorio’s voice remained quiet.
“I think I can stop you from touching that phone until my attorney gets here.”
Two guards pulled the broken rack away and helped Marcus stand.
He looked at Emma.
Not Vittorio.
Emma noticed.
She stepped backward.
Marcus smiled through a bleeding lip.
“You better be very careful about what you think you recorded.”
Vittorio immediately moved between them.
Marcus stopped smiling.
Bianca rose slowly.
“I’m leaving.”
“No.”
She stared at him.
“You don’t tell me where I can go.”
“Today I do.”
Vittorio pointed toward the doorway.
“You stay in the sitting room. One guard outside. You do not speak to Lucy. You do not speak to Emma.”
Bianca looked almost offended.
“I am your fiancée.”
“Not anymore.”
The words landed harder than the slap.
For several seconds, Bianca did not move.
Then she removed her engagement ring.
Vittorio expected her to throw it.
Instead, she closed her fist around it.
That bothered him more.
Upstairs, Emma helped Lucy change clothes.
Vittorio remained in the hallway.
He wanted to enter.
He did not.
Lucy was crying whenever anyone touched the back of her shirt.
Emma eventually opened the bedroom door.
“She wants you.”
Vittorio entered.
Lucy sat on the bed wearing clean pajamas.
Her filthy clothes lay on a towel beside Emma.
There were grass stains on the knees.
Dried mud along the hem.
And one sleeve had been torn almost completely open.
Vittorio looked at them.
“Where did this happen?”
Lucy stared at her hands.
He crouched.
“Lucy.”
She whispered, “Outside.”
“Where outside?”
“Behind the house.”
Emma looked at him.
Vittorio kept his voice calm.
“With Bianca?”
Lucy shook her head.
“With Marcus?”
Another shake.
“Were you alone?”
Lucy’s lower lip trembled.
“No.”
“Who was with you?”
She pointed toward Emma.
Vittorio slowly turned.
Emma’s face changed.
He stood.
“What happened?”
Emma hesitated.
Then she looked at Lucy.
“I found her at six this morning.”
“Where?”
“The old service garden.”
Vittorio’s expression hardened.
That garden was behind the unused east wing.
Staff rarely went there.
“How did she get there?”
Emma looked directly at him.
“I don’t know.”
Vittorio glanced at Lucy’s clothes again.
May you like
Emma continued.
“But when I found her, the gate was locked from the outside.”
