Chapter 2 - NOT THE FIRST TIME
Vittorio locked the breakfast room and sent every guard except his security chief outside.
Bianca protested from the hall.
"You cannot treat me like a criminal!"
"Then stop giving me evidence."
Marcus held a towel to his cut lip. "You're overreacting."
Vittorio looked at him once.
Marcus stopped talking.
Inside the room, Emma sat beside Lucy.
"How long?" Vittorio asked.
Emma's hands shook. "Six weeks. Maybe longer."
He felt the words like a blow.
For six weeks, he had been traveling between New York and Chicago, trying to close a legitimate shipping merger that would move his family farther from the criminal world his father built.
He had left Lucy with people he trusted.
That thought made him sick.
Emma opened a hidden folder on her phone.
One clip showed Bianca taking away Lucy's dinner because she spilled juice.
Another showed Marcus telling Lucy, "Your father hates whining."
A third showed Bianca making the child stand alone in a dark hallway after bedtime while she cried quietly for Emma.
Nothing graphic.
Nothing loud.
That almost made it worse.
Cruelty had become routine.
"Why didn't you call me?"
Emma looked ashamed. "I tried. Your calls were screened through Mr. Hale's office when you traveled."
Vittorio turned toward the door.
Marcus had controlled his schedule for twelve years.
"And the guards?"
"Half of them answer to Marcus first."
Vittorio went cold.
Lucy reached for his sleeve.
"Daddy, don't go yet."
He knelt immediately.
"I'm not leaving you."
She studied his face as if testing the promise.
Then she whispered, "Bianca said if I told you, you'd send me away like Clara."
Vittorio frowned.
"Clara?"
Emma closed her eyes.
Clara Jensen had been Lucy's nanny.
Three months ago, Marcus told Vittorio she had quit without notice.
Emma looked at him.
"She didn't quit."
"Then where is she?"
May you like
Emma unlocked a second folder.
"That's what I've been trying to find out."
