Chapter 1 - The Cry Behind the Wall
The sob reached Lorenzo Duca before the words did, and the man who had not stopped for anyone in thirteen years stopped in the middle of the gravel path. Then a little girl whispered, “Mommy, please don’t let them take you away,” and something inside the most feared man in Bellavita turned dangerously still.
Minutes earlier, Lorenzo had walked out of a private meeting in the east wing of his mansion, leaving four men seated around a polished walnut table. They had been discussing alliances, territory, and a marriage Lorenzo had never requested but was expected to accept. Vittorio Salvi, his late father’s oldest adviser, had insisted the marriage would end a growing conflict between the Duca family and the Bellandi organization.
Lorenzo had listened until the room began to feel like a coffin.
He needed air.
The October afternoon was cold, but low sunlight still cut between the trees in ribbons of amber. Wet leaves clung to the gravel. Beyond the faded hydrangeas, several large trash cans stood against the old stone wall bordering the mansion’s service garden.
That was where the crying had come from.
Lorenzo turned toward it.
The sobbing stopped as soon as his shoe disturbed the gravel.
He continued walking, moving slowly now. A dark luxury sedan remained parked near the garden entrance behind him, its polished surface reflecting the dying sunlight. Pino, Lorenzo’s enormous black Doberman, followed several steps back.
Everyone in the mansion feared Pino.
The dog had been trained to protect Lorenzo, and he possessed the unsettling habit of watching strangers without blinking. Even armed guards moved aside when he entered a hallway.
Lorenzo reached the hydrangeas and saw a tiny black shoe protruding from behind one trash can.
“Come out,” he said.
There was no response.
He moved around the row of bins and found a little girl crouched against the wall. She could not have been older than three or four. Messy light-brown hair had been tied loosely behind her head, though several strands stuck to her tear-streaked cheeks. She wore a small black-and-white maid-style dress with a white apron and collar.
An old stuffed rabbit was crushed against her chest. One of its eyes was missing.
The girl stared at Lorenzo as if death itself had discovered her hiding place.
“Who are you?” he asked.
Her lips trembled.
“Emilia.”
He recognized the name after a moment. Renata’s daughter.
Renata Bellini had worked in the mansion for almost five years. She was quiet, dependable, and so careful that Lorenzo had rarely noticed her. He knew she sometimes brought her daughter to the service quarters when the elderly neighbor who usually watched Emilia was unavailable.
“Why are you hiding here?”
Emilia lowered her face into the rabbit.
“They’re taking Mommy away.”
“Who?”
She shook her head desperately.
Before Lorenzo could question her again, Pino stepped around the trash cans.
Emilia froze.
Lorenzo raised one hand, prepared to command the dog to stay back. Pino ignored him.
The Doberman approached the child slowly, his powerful shoulders moving beneath his glossy black coat. Emilia pressed harder against the stone wall, but she did not scream.
Pino stopped in front of her.
Then the dog’s ears softened.
He sat beside the girl and gently rested his massive head against her leg.
Lorenzo stared.
Pino disliked almost everyone. Yet beside this frightened child, the animal appeared to become something else entirely.
Emilia looked down at him. One trembling hand left the stuffed rabbit and touched his head.
“He’s warm,” she whispered.
“He doesn’t usually like strangers.”
“I’m not a stranger to him.”
The answer caught Lorenzo off guard.
“You’ve met him before?”
“He comes to the laundry window at night. Mommy gives him bread.”
Pino closed his eyes beneath Emilia’s small hand.
Lorenzo lowered himself onto one knee, careless of the wet leaves staining his expensive black suit. At eye level, Emilia seemed even smaller.
“Tell me what happened.”
Her chest hitched.
“Mrs. Carbone yelled at Mommy.”
Agnes Carbone was the mansion’s head housekeeper. She had served the Duca family for twenty years and controlled the domestic staff with rigid discipline.
“Why?”
“The golden clock got lost.”
Lorenzo’s expression hardened.
The jeweled clock had belonged to his mother. Crafted from gold and set with sapphires, it had sat in the private library since Lorenzo was a child. Its monetary value meant little to him. Its history meant everything.
“They said Mommy took it,” Emilia continued. “But she didn’t.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw the bad man hide it.”
Lorenzo became very still.
“What bad man?”
Emilia glanced toward the mansion, terrified someone might be watching from its windows.
“The man with the shiny shoes.”
Nearly every man inside owned polished shoes. Lorenzo controlled his impatience.
“What did he do?”
“He put the pretty clock in Mommy’s little door.”
“Her locker?”
Emilia nodded.
“Did he see you?”
Her eyes filled again.
“Yes.”
Lorenzo felt the garden change around him. The child was not only hiding. She was a witness.
“What did he say?”
Emilia buried her face against the rabbit. When she spoke, her words came in broken fragments.
“He said if I told, Mommy would go away forever. Then he said they would send me somewhere nobody knew my name.”
A cold fury entered Lorenzo’s blood.
He had spent years listening to men lie. He knew the signs—the calculated details, the rehearsed pauses, the eyes searching for approval. Emilia displayed none of them. She was too young even to understand the full meaning of what she had witnessed.
“Did he have a name?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did he look like?”
“He had a red scratch here.”
She touched the side of her neck.
Lorenzo’s mind moved through the men who had entered the mansion that day. Guards. Drivers. Advisers. Members of the Salvi delegation.
One of them had arrived with a healing cut below his left ear.
Matteo Salvi.
Vittorio’s nephew.
Lorenzo held out his hand.
Emilia stared at it.
“Is Mommy bad?” she whispered.
“No.”
“They all said she was.”
“I don’t care what they said.”
“Are you going to hurt her?”
“No one is going to hurt your mother.”
The promise came easily. The consequences would not.
Emilia’s tiny fingers settled inside his palm. Lorenzo lifted her carefully, surprised by how little she weighed. She wrapped one arm around his neck while holding the stuffed rabbit between them.
Pino rose and moved beside them.
As Lorenzo carried her toward the mansion, Emilia rested her cheek against his shoulder.
“You smell like coffee,” she whispered.
For the briefest moment, his anger loosened.
“So I’ve been told.”
“Mommy likes coffee.”
“Then your mother has good judgment.”
They reached the marble steps. Through the tall windows, Lorenzo could see movement in the great hall. Several staff members had gathered there. Two security guards stood near the entrance to the service corridor.
Between them was Renata.
Her wrists had been bound.
Agnes Carbone stood beside her holding the jeweled clock.
Vittorio Salvi watched from the foot of the staircase.
And behind him, with a red scratch beneath his left ear and gleaming shoes on his feet, stood Matteo.
The moment Matteo saw Emilia in Lorenzo’s arms, every trace of color left his face.
Lorenzo saw it.
So did Vittorio.
Renata turned and gasped when she saw her daughter.
“Emilia!”
The child clung tighter to Lorenzo.
He entered the mansion with Pino beside him and looked directly at Matteo Salvi.
May you like
The clock had been found.
Now Lorenzo intended to discover what it had been meant to hide.
