Chapter 1 - The Scream in the Gallery
The scream cut down the grand marble staircase like a straight razor across silk.
It was sharp, jagged, and choked with raw, adolescent terror. The crystal pendants on the three tiered chandeliers overhead shivered faintly, and forty syndicate captains and municipal directors went rigid, their hands dropping their silverware in unison.
My heart didn't just drop; it stopped beating entirely.
“Katie!”
The cry tore from my chest before I could measure the room or the men standing in it. I dropped my empty service tray, completely oblivious to the hollow clang it made against the parquet floor, and bolted toward the sweeping staircase.
A manicured hand shot out, catching the fabric of my black uniform collar with violent force.
“Stay where you are, Emma!” Vanessa hissed, her painted lips pulled back over clenched teeth, her emerald earrings rattling against her neck. “You do not run through this house like an animal in front of our guests!”
She didn't let go. She twisted the coarse cotton of my collar, trying to force me backward.
Before I could tear myself free, an arm wrapped in tailored charcoal wool stepped between us.
Luca Moretti didn't raise his voice. He didn't shout an order.
He simply placed his bare, calloused hand over Vanessa’s wrist.
He squeezed.
A sharp, audible gasp tore from Vanessa’s throat as her fingers sprang open involuntarily. She stumbled back two steps, cradling her bruised wrist against her gold-embroidered bodice, her face twisting into sheer, stunned disbelief.
“Luca!” she gasped. “She is a servant—”
“Touch her again,” Luca whispered, his voice smooth as shaved marble and colder than the frozen lake outside, “and I will break every bone in that wrist before you reach the front door.”
He didn't spare her a second glance. He turned toward the archway where Daniel, his chief of security, was already stepping out with four armed enforcers in dark suits.
“Seal the perimeter,” Luca commanded, his baritone booming through the vaulted hall with undisputed, lethal gravity. “Drop the iron grates on all exits. Disarm Richard Vale’s drivers at the gatehouse. If anyone attempts to cross the property line, shoot them through the engine block.”
“Yes, boss,” Daniel barked, drawing a suppressed tactical sidearm.
Luca turned to me. The unreadable, terrifying mask of the sovereign shifted by a fraction of an inch, his dark gray eyes locking onto mine with an ocean of unyielding, absolute protection.
“Where did she take the coat, Emma?”
“The... the west guest wing,” I stammered, my voice shaking so violently my teeth clicked together. “Suite four. The red room.”
Luca caught my hand into his massive, scarred palm. He didn't leave me behind; he pulled me alongside him as he cleared the marble stairs three at a time, moving with the terrifying, explosive speed of a predator unleashed.
May you like
Behind us, the second scream tore through the second-floor gallery.
---
