Chapter 3 - The Coffee Stain on the Ledger
As the guards dragged Ranata away—her heels scratching futilely against the marble, her protests fading down the echoing stone corridor—the great hall remained frozen in place. Thirty-two pairs of eyes stared at the floor, terrified that the lightning storm would sweep through the rest of them.
Lorenzo turned back toward Elena, who had fallen to her knees, weeping openly into her apron, her shoulders shaking with the sudden, violent release of unendurable pressure.
"Get up, Elena," Lorenzo said, his tone softening only marginally, though the raw authority remained.
"Thank you, sir—God bless you, Mr. Duca, I don't know how—"
"Don't thank me yet," he interrupted, crouching down once more. This time, he didn't care about the mud or the wet leaves clinging to his trousers. He looked at Mia, who had abandoned her one-eyed rabbit for a moment to poke tentatively at the toe of his shiny, expensive leather shoe. "Your mother’s wages are doubled starting today. And you are moving out of the staff quarters."
Elena’s head snapped up, panic flashing in her red-rimmed eyes. "Sir? Please, don't fire us, we have nowhere else to go—"
"You aren't being fired," Lorenzo said, letting out a short, dry breath that sounded almost like a laugh. "You're moving into the West Pavilion. It has actual sunlight, a functioning kitchen, and no one will ever tell your daughter where she can or cannot walk in this garden."
He stood up, towering over them once more. The thirty-two members of the household staff were still standing like statues, waiting for their own sentence. Lorenzo swept his gaze across the room, letting the silence stretch until every single person was sweating through their uniforms.
"Listen to me," Lorenzo said, his voice carrying clearly to every corner of the hall. "Every rule in this house changes today. If I find out that any person under this roof treats a child—any child—with cruelty, disrespect, or dishonesty, they won't just be fired. They will find out why they call this the Duca estate."
He didn't wait for a response. He turned on his heel, motioning for Pino to follow.
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The Doberman gave one last, protective nudge to Mia's knee, then trotted after his master, his claws clicking rhythmically against the stone.
As Lorenzo walked down the long corridor toward his private study, the heavy oak doors closing behind him, he reached into his pocket and pulled out something small and damp. It was a single, fuzzy pink ear belonging to a stuffed rabbit. He stared at it for a long, silent moment, then slid it carefully into his breast pocket—right over his heart, where the coffee stain from Mia’s shoulder was already drying into a dark, permanent ring.
