Chapter 9 - The Empty BassinetI do not remember the ride back to the estate clearly.
I remember Lorenzo’s voice cutting through the SUV like a blade.
“Lock down the east wing.”
“Get Rowe on the line.”
“Nobody opens a door without my voice.”
“Find my son.”
Find my son.
Those words broke something in me.
Because no one had said find Leo.
They said secure him. Protect him. Move him.
Not find him.
The estate gates were open when we arrived.
One guard was down near the fountain.
Alive.
Bleeding.
Massimo was out of the SUV before it fully stopped. Lorenzo followed. I ran after them, ignoring the pain still living deep in my body from the fall that had taken Lily.
Inside, alarms screamed.
Smoke hung in the hallway. Not fire. A diversion.
The medical suite door stood open.
Dr. Rowe sat on the floor against the wall with blood at her temple. Her eyes were open but unfocused.
The bassinet was empty.
I made a sound I did not recognize.
Lorenzo froze in the doorway.
For one second, he was not a boss.
Not a criminal legend.
Not a man with guards and guns and money.
He was a father staring at empty white blankets.
Then he turned into something else entirely.
“Who?” he asked.
Dr. Rowe tried to speak.
I dropped beside her. “Doctor. Look at me. Where is Leo?”
Her eyes found mine.
“Not Silvio,” she whispered.
Lorenzo crouched. “Who took him?”
Dr. Rowe swallowed. “Alessia.”
Silence.
Massimo stared at her. “She’s confused.”
Dr. Rowe gripped my wrist with surprising strength. “No. Not Alessia. Her sister.”
Lorenzo’s face changed.
“Bianca?”
Dr. Rowe nodded faintly.
Bianca Rossi.
Alessia’s younger sister.
I had seen her portrait downstairs. Blonde. Delicate. Smiling at some charity event beside Alessia. The kind of woman people described as fragile because she made fragility look expensive.
Lorenzo stood slowly.
“She has been in Europe,” Massimo said.
“She came home,” Dr. Rowe rasped. “Renata let her in days ago. Hidden in the old guest wing.”
Lorenzo’s eyes filled with disbelief that burned quickly into fury.
“Why would Bianca take Leo?” I asked.
No one answered.
Then I remembered Alessia’s envelope.
For Clara.
My hands shook as I opened it.
Inside was a letter and a photograph.
The photograph showed Alessia pregnant, standing beside a woman I recognized as Bianca. Behind them, half reflected in a mirror, stood Silvio Rossi and Dr. Hale.
Alessia had circled Bianca’s bracelet in red ink.
The letter was short.
Clara, if they brought you into this, then they are more desperate than I feared. Bianca cannot have children. Silvio promised her Leo if Lorenzo was declared unfit or dead. She believes my son should have been hers. She is not innocent. She is broken, and broken people can be turned into knives.
I stopped reading because my hands were shaking too hard.
Lorenzo took the letter.
His face went pale.
“Where would she take him?” I asked.
He looked at the empty bassinet.
“The rose house.”
Massimo cursed.
“What is that?”
“Alessia’s greenhouse,” Lorenzo said. “Bianca loved it. After Alessia died, I locked it.”
“Can she get in?”
Lorenzo looked at the broken security panel beside the medical suite.
“She already got in here.”
We ran.
The rose house stood beyond the rear gardens, a glass structure glowing faintly through the rain. Beautiful, even from a distance. That made my stomach twist. So much horror had hidden behind beautiful things tonight.
Halfway across the lawn, a baby cried.
Weak.
But alive.
Leo.
I ran faster.
Lorenzo caught me before I reached the doors.
“Wait.”
“No.”
“Clara.”
I looked at him, furious.
He pointed to the glass.
A wire ran along the doorframe.
Massimo saw it and pulled me back.
“Trap.”
Inside the greenhouse, under hanging white roses, Bianca Rossi held Leo in her arms.
She wore a pale blue dress and no shoes.
Her hair was wet from rain.
She was crying.
Not like a villain.
Like a woman who had already lost the argument with madness.
“Lorenzo,” she called through the glass. “Don’t come in.”
Leo cried again.
My body responded instantly. Milk came in hard, painful and desperate. I pressed a hand to my chest.
Bianca saw.
Her expression changed.
“You,” she said. “The milk girl.”
Lorenzo’s voice was deadly calm. “Give me my son.”
“He should have been mine.”
“Bianca.”
“Alessia always got everything.” Her voice cracked. “The house. The name. The child. Even dead, she keeps him from me.”
“He is not a possession.”
“He is blood.”
“He is my son.”
Bianca looked down at Leo.
“He doesn’t even know you,” she whispered. “He knows her.”
Her eyes lifted to me.
“He knows the maid.”
Leo’s cry weakened.
I stepped closer despite Massimo’s warning.
“Bianca,” I said softly. “He’s hungry.”
Her face twisted.
“No.”
“He needs to eat.”
“You want to take him too.”
“No.” My voice broke. “I know what it feels like to leave a hospital without your baby. I know what your arms do when there’s no child in them. But hurting Leo will not make that emptiness stop.”
Bianca stared at me.
For one second, I reached her.
Then a man stepped from the shadows behind her.
Silvio Rossi.
White-haired. Elegant. Calm.
May you like
He held a detonator in one hand.
“Touch that door,” he said, “and the glass house becomes a grave.”
