Chapter 1 - The Breakfast I Was Never Supposed to See
“If she behaves like an animal, she eats like one.”
Bianca’s voice reached Vittorio before the rest of the breakfast room came into focus.
She stood beside a stainless-steel dog-food bowl on the floor, one hand resting casually against the back of a dining chair. Seven-year-old Lucy was several feet away, crying in torn, dirty clothes that looked as though she had slept in them.
Vittorio crossed the room without answering.
He lifted Lucy into his arms.
She locked both arms around his neck so tightly that he felt her fingers clutch the back of his shirt.
“Daddy… but I’m a human being.”
Something inside him went very still.
Near the doorway to the formal study, Emma stood with a smartphone already raised. The household assistant’s face looked frightened, but she stepped forward anyway and turned the screen toward him.
A short recording was already playing.
Bianca was visible beside the same dog-food bowl. Lucy was on her knees. Bianca repeatedly pushed the little girl’s head downward toward the bowl while Lucy struggled to pull away.
The clip lasted only seconds.
It was enough.
Vittorio looked from the screen to his wife.
Then Marcus moved.
Bianca’s brother had been standing near the study entrance. The moment he saw what Emma had shown Vittorio, his expression changed. He lunged toward her and reached for the phone.
Vittorio immediately set Lucy beside Emma.
Emma pulled the child behind her.
Marcus’s hand never reached the smartphone.
Vittorio caught his arm and drove one hard punch across his face.
Marcus crashed backward into the antique map rack. Wood cracked. Rolled maps spilled across the floor, followed by several leather map cases. He landed among them, stunned but conscious.
Bianca rushed toward Lucy.
Vittorio knocked her reaching hand aside.
When she tried again, he struck her once with an open hand, sending her backward onto the leather ottoman. A low table overturned beside her. Breakfast trays slid to the floor. Cushions scattered beneath the windows.
Lucy remained behind Emma.
Safe.
Vittorio picked up the dog-food bowl.
He carried it across the room and placed it directly in front of Bianca’s feet.
“Enjoy your last meal.”
For the first time since he had entered the room, Bianca looked frightened.
Vittorio turned away from her immediately.
He gathered Lucy against his chest again.
Only then, with his daughter pressed against him and the first explosion of anger beginning to settle into something colder, did he truly see what she was wearing.
Her shirt was torn near one shoulder.
One knee of her pants had split.
Dirt streaked the fabric along her side.
Those clothes had been damaged before breakfast.
Vittorio looked down at them.
Then at Bianca.
Then at Marcus, still sitting among the fallen maps.
Emma was gripping the smartphone with both hands.
The dog bowl suddenly stopped being the worst thing Vittorio had seen that morning.
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Because whatever had happened to Lucy had started before Bianca brought her into this room.
And judging by the way Marcus avoided Vittorio’s eyes, he already knew exactly what it was.
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