Chapter 1 : Vittorio did not let either Hale leave until the security footage had been preserved.
Vittorio did not let either Hale leave until the security footage had been preserved.
He also did not let his bodyguards touch them again.
Marcus pushed himself out from beneath the broken antique map rack, furious and humiliated.
“You assaulted me.”
“You lunged at a witness holding evidence of what you did to my daughter.”
“I didn’t touch Lucy.”
“You closed the door.”
Marcus’s expression shifted.
A small change.
Enough.
Bianca was still sitting on the leather ottoman with one hand against her cheek.
“She was being disciplined.”
Vittorio slowly turned toward her.
“You put my five-year-old daughter on the floor beside a dog bowl.”
“She was throwing food.”
Lucy tightened her arms around Emma.
Vittorio noticed.
Not around him.
Around Emma.
That hurt.
“What food?”
Bianca pointed toward the breakfast table.
“Ask her.”
Vittorio crouched instead.
“Lucy.”
The little girl immediately looked frightened.
He changed the question.
“You don’t have to explain anything right now.”
Her shoulders relaxed slightly.
That mattered more than getting an answer.
Vittorio called Lucy’s pediatrician and arranged an evaluation that morning. Then he called his attorney.
By the time police arrived, the breakfast-room footage had been copied by an outside forensic technician.
The recording from Emma’s phone was preserved separately.
Vittorio gave statements.
So did Emma.
Bianca and Marcus contacted counsel.
No one was dragged into a basement.
No one disappeared.
That disappointed several older Romano relatives who heard about the incident before lunch.
Vittorio did not care.
At the pediatrician’s office, Lucy had no acute physical injuries.
The larger concern was emotional.
Dr. Hannah Whitmore asked whether Lucy had recently changed eating habits.
Vittorio frowned.
“Not that I’ve noticed.”
Emma, seated several feet away, looked down.
Vittorio saw it.
“Emma?”
She hesitated.
“Lucy stopped eating breakfast downstairs about three weeks ago.”
Vittorio stared at her.
“She eats breakfast every morning.”
“Yes.”
“Then what do you mean?”
Emma’s voice became quiet.
“She started hiding food in her cardigan.”
Lucy immediately began crying.
Vittorio turned toward his daughter.
Dr. Whitmore stopped him before he could ask anything else.
“Not here. Not like this.”
She looked at him carefully.
“Adults investigate adults. Lucy gets to be five.”
Vittorio nodded.
Then looked back at Emma.
May you like
Three weeks.
Whatever he had walked into that morning had not started that morning.
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