Chapter 4 - Dinner UpstairsRosa put Emma in a small room behind the infirmary with Biscotti, a blanket, and a bowl of buttered noodles she had somehow produced from nowhere.
“Eat,” she ordered.
Emma looked at me.
I nodded, though my hands were shaking.
She climbed onto the cot and took the fork. “Mama stays?”
“I’m right outside.”
“Door open?”
“Door open.”
Only then did she eat.
I stood in the doorway for a moment watching her. Tomato-red corduroy dress. Crooked hair clip. Blood on one sleeve that I had not yet washed away. She was too small for the secrets surrounding her.
Rosa came beside me.
“I will sit with her,” she said.
“I should—”
“You should wash your hands before that blood dries into your soul.”
I looked at her.
Her voice softened. “Go, Sophia. There will be more blood before morning.”
I washed in the infirmary sink until the water ran pink, then clear, then pink again because my palm had split from the pruning knife. Ricci wrapped it quickly while giving instructions to Marco.
Lorenzo was conscious now, though barely. Blood from Marco flowed through a thin tube into his arm. The sight unsettled me. Marco sitting in a chair, sleeve rolled up, face blank. Lorenzo lying on the bed, pale but breathing.
Two dangerous men connected by a line of red.
“Vincent cannot know Lorenzo survived,” Marco said.
“He already knows,” I said.
“He knows Lorenzo left the cellar alive. That is different. If Vincent thinks he is dying underground, he will focus on finding the watch.”
Ricci nodded. “We keep him here until he can stand.”
Lorenzo opened his eyes. “I can stand.”
“No,” Ricci said.
“I did not ask.”
“You never do. That is why I keep sedatives.”
Lorenzo glared at him.
Ricci glared back.
For one absurd second, they looked like old brothers arguing over dinner.
Then the mansion intercom crackled.
A voice filled the hidden room.
Vincent’s voice.
“All household staff report to the main dining room immediately.”
My blood turned cold.
The intercom clicked off.
Rosa appeared in the doorway. “He is gathering everyone.”
Marco stood. “He is looking for Sophia.”
Lorenzo’s gaze found me.
“No,” he said.
I understood before he explained.
If I did not go upstairs, Vincent would know.
If I did go upstairs, Vincent might kill me.
There seemed to be no option in this house that did not end with someone bleeding.
Marco shook his head. “Too dangerous.”
Lorenzo tried to sit up. Ricci shoved him back down.
“She goes,” Lorenzo said.
“Absolutely not,” Marco snapped.
“She goes because if she does not, he comes down here with every man he has left.”
I looked toward the small room where Emma was eating noodles.
“What about my daughter?”
“Rosa keeps her here,” Lorenzo said. “Safe.”
I almost laughed again.
Safe.
Was there any such place in the Duca estate?
Rosa stepped forward. “I raised five boys in Sicily and survived two husbands. I can keep one little girl and a cat quiet.”
Marco looked at me. “You say nothing upstairs. You saw nothing. You know nothing.”
“That has been my job for seven years.”
Lorenzo’s eyes sharpened. “Not tonight.”
I looked at him.
He held out his hand.
In his palm lay the black horn button.
“Put it back where you found it.”
My breath caught.
“What?”
“In the cellar,” Lorenzo said. “If Vincent thinks the evidence is gone, he will tear through everyone. If he sees the button where it fell, he may believe you never noticed.”
Marco nodded slowly. “Risky.”
“Everything is risky,” Lorenzo said.
I took the button.
It felt heavier than a bullet.
Then Lorenzo held out something else.
The memory card case.
“No,” Marco said immediately.
Lorenzo ignored him and kept his eyes on me.
“Hide this somewhere no one will search.”
“I said no.”
“And I heard you.”
His hand did not move.
I stared at the case.
This tiny thing had nearly killed him. It had brought Vincent to the cellar. It had put my child in danger. Every instinct screamed at me to throw it across the room.
Instead, I took it.
Because Emma had tried with plastic scissors.
Because I could try with fear.
“Where?” I asked.
Lorenzo’s mouth curved faintly. “You are a maid. You know the dirtiest places in this house.”
I thought of laundry bins. Grease traps. Ash buckets. Diaper pails from visiting nephews. Places men like Vincent would never lower themselves to touch.
“I know one,” I said.
Marco gave me a small black device. “Press this twice if you need us.”
“What is it?”
“Something Vincent cannot hear.”
I tucked it into my pocket.
Then I kissed Emma’s forehead, told her I would be back before she finished counting Biscotti’s stripes, and climbed through the passage alone.
The cellar was empty when I returned.
The iron chair sat in the center like a monster waiting to be fed. Blood stained the stone. Wine mixed with it near the racks. The broken restraints lay on the floor. Carlo and Niko were gone.
I placed Vincent’s button near the chair leg, exactly where I had found it.
Then I hurried up the stairs.
The pantry door hung crooked from its frame.
In the kitchen, every light blazed.
No one cooked.
No one spoke.
The entire staff moved toward the main dining room like mourners entering a church.
I joined them.
Maria from laundry grabbed my arm. “Where were you?”
“Emma got sick.”
Her eyes flicked over my pale face, the bandage on my hand, the damp apron.
She knew I was lying.
Bless her, she did not ask.
The main dining room had been prepared for a feast no one would eat. Long table polished like black glass. Silver candlesticks. Crystal glasses. White roses. Twelve place settings.
At the head of the table sat Vincent Romano.
In Lorenzo’s chair.
A murmur moved through the staff.
Vincent let us see him there.
That was the point.
He wanted the house to understand before he said a word.
Beside him stood Salvatore Greco.
Tall. Silver-haired. No smile.
Emma had described him perfectly.
Vincent raised one hand, and the room went silent.
“Mr. Duca has been called away on urgent business,” he said.
No one breathed.
“Until he returns, all household and security operations answer to me.”
Rosa would have spat if she had been there.
I kept my head bowed.
Vincent’s eyes moved across the staff.
Slow.
Measuring.
When they reached me, they stopped.
“Sophia.”
Every face turned.
I lifted my head. “Yes, sir?”
He smiled.
“There you are.”
My mouth went dry.
“I was told your daughter was unwell.”
“Yes, sir.”
“How unfortunate.”
“Yes, sir.”
His gaze dropped to my bandaged hand.
“What happened?”
I folded it against my apron. “Kitchen knife.”
“Careless.”
“Yes, sir.”
He rose from Lorenzo’s chair.
The room seemed to shrink around him.
He walked toward me with the relaxed grace of a man who enjoyed being watched. When he stopped inches away, I smelled his cologne. Clean. Expensive. Wrong.
“Where is Emma now?”
My heart lurched.
“Asleep.”
“In the servants’ wing?”
“Yes, sir.”
He smiled.
Then leaned close enough that only I could hear.
“No, she isn’t.”
My blood stopped.
Vincent straightened.
“Bring the child,” he said to one of his men.
My knees nearly failed.
Maria whispered, “Sophia?”
I could not answer.
A guard left the dining room.
Vincent returned to Lorenzo’s chair.
May you like
And for the first time in seven years, every servant in that room looked at me not as the quiet maid who survived by silence.
They looked at me like I was the only person who knew where the real war had begun.
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