Chapter 2 - Shadows in the KitchenThe industrial kitchens of the DeLuca mansion were usually a masterpiece of pristine stainless steel and absolute order. Tonight, they were a ghost town.
Lorenzo kicked the heavy swinging door open with a force that sent it crashing against the tiled wall. Dante was right behind him, his hand already resting comfortably inside his suit jacket where a suppressed Walther PPK rested in a custom leather holster.
"Sophia!" Lorenzo’s voice didn't echo; it cracked through the room like a bullwhip.
No answer. Only the rhythmic drip of a neglected faucet somewhere near the industrial dishwashers and the hum of massive commercial refrigerators.
"Check the pantry, the loading dock, and the staff quarters upstairs," Lorenzo commanded, his chest heaving. The cool air of the kitchen felt like ice against his burning skin.
He walked slowly toward the center of the room, his eyes scanning every inch of stainless steel. On the prep table in front of him sat a tray of half-sliced lemons and a damp rag. Beside it lay something small, dropped in panic.
Lorenzo reached down and picked it up.
It was a worn, leather-bound locket. The clasp was broken, hanging loosely by a thread of tarnished silver. With trembling fingers, Lorenzo flipped it open.
Inside on the left was a faded photograph of a young Sophia Rossi smiling timidly next to a man whose face had been aggressively scratched out with a razor blade.
On the right was a photograph that made Lorenzo’s heart stop completely.
It was a picture of Isabella Conti—his dead fiancée—laughing brightly in a sunlit garden, holding an infant wrapped in a pink blanket. Written across the bottom of the photograph in neat, flowing cursive were the words: My sweet girls. Never let them find you.
"Boss," Dante's voice hissed from the doorway leading down to the underground wine cellars and servant quarters. "You need to see this."
Lorenzo pocketed the locket, his boots striking the tile floor with thunderous echoes as he sprinted toward Dante.
They descended the narrow, concrete staircase into the belly of the mansion—the old stone foundation built back when bootleggers ran rum up from the Hudson River. The air down here smelled of damp earth, aged oak, and fear.
Dante was standing outside Room 104—the small, windowless quarters assigned to the head housemaid. The wooden door had been kicked open from the inside, splinters hanging off the frame.
Lorenzo pushed past Dante and stepped into the room.
It was completely empty. Not a single suitcase remained. The bed was stripped down to the bare mattress. But on the small wooden desk in the corner, illuminated by a single flickering bulb, sat an open laptop with its screen glowing brightly.
On the screen was a live security feed of the mansion's private perimeter gates.
And parked right outside the iron gates, idling in the pouring rain with its headlights off, was a matte-black bulletproof Mercedes van—bearing the crest of the Moretti family, Lorenzo’s fiercest and most ruthless rivals in Brooklyn.
"They didn't just work here, Lorenzo," Dante said softly, stepping into the room and staring at the screen. "She's been keeping them safe under your own roof for eight months."
Lorenzo didn't speak. He stared at the van on the screen as the passenger door opened, a figure in a black trench coat stepped out into the rain, and a muffled cell phone notification buzzed loudly in Lorenzo’s pocket.
May you like
He pulled out his phone. A single, encrypted text message flashed across the screen from an unknown number:
“You want your daughter back, Lorenzo? Come alone to Pier 44 at midnight. Bring the ledger. Leave your ghosts at home.”
