Chapter 1 - The Cold Cellar and the Broken Lock
“Did the furniture just speak?”
Victoria Kensington’s voice was smooth, melodic, and poisoned with absolute contempt. She took a slow step toward Beatrice, the train of her silk lounge gown whispering across the polished herringbone wood of the grand living room.
In her right hand, Victoria still held the torn halves of Lily’s sketchbook. Crayon drawings of suns, houses, and three crooked figures labeled Daddy, Lily, and Bee lay ruined on the Persian rug between them.
Beatrice didn't look down at the torn paper. She looked directly into Victoria’s pale blue eyes.
“Miss Kensington, please,” Beatrice repeated, her voice steady despite the adrenaline surging through her veins. “Lily spent three days on those drawings. She was waiting to give them to her father when he returned from Miami. Give her back the rest of her pad.”
Victoria let out a quiet, tinkling laugh—the kind of laugh reserved for galas and garden parties when someone made a mildly amusing joke.
“You foolish, bloated cow,” Victoria murmured, stepping so close Beatrice could smell the bitter jasmine perfume clinging to her skin. “You actually think your opinion matters in this house. You think because Leo lets you sweep his floors and feed his daughter sugar that you are somehow human to him.”
“I know my place,” Beatrice said softly. “And I know yours. You are a guest in Mr. Rossi’s house until the wedding. You have no right to destroy his daughter’s things.”
Victoria’s expression didn't change, but her hand moved with blinding speed.
THWACK.
The back of Victoria’s hand caught Beatrice across the cheekbone. The sharp edge of a three-carat yellow diamond ring sliced deep into the soft flesh beneath Beatrice’s left eye. Warm blood immediately spurted across her skin, dripping onto the pristine white lace collar of her maid’s uniform.
Beatrice stumbled back two steps, her head spinning from the force of the blow.
Before she could regain her balance, Victoria reached into the pocket of her gown, pulled out a small plastic cylinder—Lily’s emergency albuterol inhaler—and dropped it onto the hardwood floor.
With a deliberate, cruel crunch of her designer heel, Victoria crushed the plastic casing into splintered junk. The white medicine hissed out into the air, useless.
“No!” Beatrice gasped, dropping to her knees, her hands reaching out instinctively.
“Lily!” Victoria called toward the doorway, her voice turning sweet and singing. “Sweetheart! Come here!”
Six-year-old Lily stepped out from behind the doorframe, her small frame trembling, her big brown eyes wide with terror as she saw the blood on Beatrice’s face.
“Bee?” Lily whimpered, her breath already catching in her throat—the sharp, dangerous hitch that preceded a severe asthma attack. “Bee, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing, baby,” Beatrice choked out, trying to push herself up. “Stay back, Lily—”
Victoria grabbed Lily by the upper arm with a grip so tight the child let out a sharp cry. Victoria dragged her down the long, dark hallway toward the heavy iron door that led into the mansion’s sub-basement wine cellar—a converted fallout shelter built during the Cold War, framed in six inches of reinforced steel and solid brick.
“Let her go!” Beatrice screamed, launching her heavy frame forward.
She caught Victoria by the shoulder, shoving the taller woman away from the child. But Victoria turned like a striking viper. She kicked Beatrice hard in the stomach with her pointed heel. The blow drove the air straight out of Beatrice’s lungs, sending her crashing onto her side against the marble baseboard.
Before Beatrice could catch her breath, Victoria shoved Lily into the dark, freezing cellar, slammed the heavy iron door shut, and turned the double brass deadbolts with a heavy, sickening CLACK.
Inside the cellar, Lily began to scream—a thin, terrified sound that almost immediately dissolved into wet, gasping wheezes.
“She’s having an attack!” Beatrice sobbed, crawling on her hands and knees toward Victoria, grabbing the hem of her silk gown. “She doesn't have her inhaler! She will suffocate down there! Please, Victoria! Give me the key!”
Victoria looked down at Beatrice with cold, detached boredom. She reached into her pocket, pulled out the heavy brass master key, and casually tossed it behind her, down the brass grate of the floor heating duct.
The key clattered down three stories into the furnace system, lost in the dark.
“Consider yourself fired, Beatrice,” Victoria said smoothly, wiping her fingers with a linen handkerchief as if she had just touched something filthy. “And when Leo comes home on Saturday, I will tell him that you threw a hysterical fit, broke into his wine collection, and locked his daughter down there yourself. Who do you think he’ll believe? A port heiress whose father controls his shipping lines, or an ugly, fat servant girl with blood on her face?”
Victoria turned and walked away, her heels clicking rhythmically toward the upper living quarters.
Beatrice lay on the floor for three seconds, her body shaking, her bruised chest burning with every gasping breath.
Saturday.
Victoria thought Leo was in Miami until Saturday.
Beatrice forced herself up. She didn't look for the key in the heating vent. She didn't waste time weeping. She ran up the servant staircase toward the fourth floor—the private executive wing where no member of the domestic staff was ever permitted to step under penalty of immediate termination.
At the end of the long mahogany hallway stood the heavy oak door of Leo Rossi’s private office.
The door was locked.
Beatrice didn't hesitate. She threw her broad shoulder against the wood with everything she had.
BOOM.
The door groaned, but the deadbolt held.
“Come on,” Beatrice prayed through her teeth, blood dripping from her jaw onto her shirt. “Come on, God, give me strength!”
She backed up three paces, lowered her heavy shoulder, and slammed into the frame again with absolute, terrifying fury.
CRACK!
The heavy oak frame splintered. The door swung open, crashing against the wall inside.
Beatrice stumbled into the dimly lit, leather-scented sanctuary of the city’s most dangerous man. On the massive mahogany desk sat a heavy red landline telephone—an unlisted, encrypted satellite line used only for absolute emergencies within the Rossi organization.
She picked up the receiver and pressed the red button.
The line connected instantly.
Fifteen minutes after the line went dead, Beatrice was kneeling on the cold flagstones outside the sub-basement iron door.
Her shoulders were raw, her fingers purple and swollen from hitting the steel frame with a heavy iron fire extinguisher she had dragged from the butler’s pantry. The extinguisher now lay dented and useless beside her on the floor.
“Lily?” Beatrice pressed her mouth against the crack of the iron door frame, her voice trembling with gentle warmth. “Lily, honey, can you hear Bee?”
From inside the dark, unheated room, a faint, ragged whistling sound answered her.
“Bee...” Lily gasped, her voice no louder than a dry leaf scraping across concrete. “It’s... cold... Bee... my chest... hurts...”
“I know, baby,” Beatrice sobbed quietly, pressing her bleeding cheek against the freezing iron door. “I know it hurts, sweetheart. Listen to my voice. Do you remember the game we play during the thunderstorms? Do you remember the shortbread song?”
A faint, trembling breath answered her.
“In through your nose, Lily,” Beatrice coaxed, taking deep, exaggerated breaths so the child could hear the rhythm through the steel. “Slowly, baby. Like you’re smelling the warm cookies coming out of the oven. One... two... three... hold it... now blow out the birthday candles... one... two... three...”
“I... I can’t... smell the cookies, Bee...” Lily wheezed, her small voice growing terrifyingly weak. “It’s... too dark...”
“I’m right here!” Beatrice slammed her palm against the iron, fresh tears burning through the blood on her face. “I am not leaving this door, Lily! Do you hear me?! Nobody is going to hurt you! Your daddy is coming! He promised me he’s coming!”
Above them, through three floors of concrete and marble, a sound began to build.
May you like
It wasn't the sound of rain.
It was the thunderous, terrifying roar of five high-horsepower V8 engines tearing through the front iron gates of the estate at eighty miles an hour.
