Chapter 2 - The Fire in the Cold
Beatrice did not think about the consequences. She did not think about the Rossi syndicate, or the guards outside, or the fact that Victoria Kensington was the daughter of a man who could have her erased from the city’s records with a single phone call. She only saw the iron door, and she only heard the silence of a child who could no longer draw air.
"Open the door," Beatrice said. Her voice was no longer the soft, apologetic whisper she used when she bumped into furniture. It was low, steady, and vibrating with a primal rage.
Victoria laughed, a high, mocking sound as she walked over to the sideboard and poured herself a glass of red wine. "You forget who you are speaking to, maid. Go back to the laundry. Or better yet, pack your things. You are fired."
"Open the door, Victoria!" Beatrice roared. She took three steps across the kitchen, her large frame suddenly imposing, taking up the space she had spent years trying to shrink out of.
Victoria’s eyes widened slightly in surprise, but her arrogance quickly returned. She held her wine glass like a shield. "Touch me, and my father will have you in a ditch by tonight."
Beatrice ignored the threat. She lunged for the keys hanging from Victoria's belt, but Victoria reacted with vicious speed. She smashed the heavy crystal wine glass directly into the side of Beatrice's face. The glass shattered, cutting a deep, jagged line across Beatrice's cheek. Blood, bright and hot, sprayed across the white marble floor.
Beatrice stumbled back, the pain blinding her for a second, but she did not fall. She wiped the blood from her eyes with the sleeve of her uniform and stepped forward again.
"You're a monster," Beatrice whispered.
"I am the future mistress of this house," Victoria spat, her voice trembling with a mixture of rage and sudden, creeping fear as she looked at the blood on Beatrice's face. "And you are nothing."
Victoria called out for the guards, her voice shrill. "Marcus! Giovanni! Get in here! This fat cow has lost her mind!"
Two guards burst through the kitchen doors, their hands on their holstered weapons. They stopped dead when they saw the scene: Beatrice bleeding, her uniform torn, standing like a wall in front of the cellar door, and Victoria holding the broken stem of a wine glass.
"She attacked me!" Victoria shrieked, pointing at Beatrice. "Drag her out of here! Throw her in the street!"
The guards looked at each other, hesitant. They knew Beatrice; they knew she was the only one who could make Lily laugh. But they also knew who Victoria was, and more importantly, they knew who paid their salaries. Marcus stepped forward, his hand reaching for Beatrice’s shoulder.
"Beatrice, come on. Don't make this worse," Marcus said quietly.
"She locked Lily in the cellar," Beatrice said, her voice cracking but steady. "Lily is having an asthma attack. She doesn't have her inhaler. If you let her stay down there, she will die. Are you going to tell Leo you let his daughter suffocate because this woman told you to?"
The name Leo acted like a physical blow to the guards. They froze. The loyalty they had to the Rossi family was built on respect, but it was also built on a very healthy, very justified fear of Leo Rossi’s wrath. If anything happened to Lily, there would be nowhere on earth they could hide.
"Is this true?" Giovanni asked, looking at Victoria.
"She is lying!" Victoria yelled. "The child is fine! She is just throwing a fit! I am the fiancée of your boss, you will obey my orders!"
But Beatrice didn't wait for them to decide. She turned and threw her body against the iron cellar door, using her weight to hammer against the metal, hoping the noise would keep Lily awake, hoping the child could hear that she wasn't alone.
"Lily! Lily, hear my voice! Keep breathing, baby! I'm right here!" Beatrice screamed, her hands hitting the cold iron until her knuckles split and turned purple.
It was during this chaos—the guards arguing, Victoria screaming, Beatrice pounding on the door with blood dripping from her face—that the heavy front doors of the mansion swung open.
Leo Rossi had returned early.
The air in the house changed instantly. It was as if a sudden drop in barometric pressure had hit the room, silencing every throat. The heavy, measured footsteps of Leo’s handmade Italian leather shoes echoed down the long hallway, accompanied by the lighter, swifter steps of Mateo Calder.
By the time Leo Rossi came through the kitchen doors, the woman who had risked everything for his daughter was bleeding on his kitchen floor, and the six-year-old he loved more than his own life had stopped making any sound behind the iron cellar door.
Leo stopped. His black wool coat hung open, revealing the shoulder holster beneath. His dark eyes, usually unreadable, swept over the kitchen in a fraction of a second. He saw the broken glass, the blood, the guards standing paralyzed, Victoria holding her breath, and Beatrice, her face split open, her body pressed against the iron door like a shield.
"Where is she?" Leo asked.
His voice was not loud. It was worse than loud. It was the voice of a man who had already decided who was going to die; he was just finalizing the order.
Beatrice lifted her head, her vision blurry with tears and blood. "The cellar," she whispered. "She locked Lily in the cellar. She doesn't have her inhaler. Mr. Rossi, she was wheezing, and then she just..."
She couldn't finish the sentence. The absolute terror of what might be on the other side of that door took her voice away.
Leo did not look at Victoria. He did not look at the guards. He walked toward the door, his eyes locked on the heavy brass lock.
May you like
"The key," he said.
The reckoning had begun.
