Chapter 7 - The Confrontation
Before Emma could respond, the heavy study doors swung open wide. Sophia rushed into the room, breathless and terrified, having tracked her daughter’s footsteps all the way from the servant quarters.
"Emma!" Sophia cried out, dropping to her knees and sweeping the little girl into her arms, pulling her tightly against her chest. She looked up at Lorenzo, her eyes blazing with protective fury. "I am sorry! I turned my back for one second—I swear to you, Mr. Moretti, she won't—"
"Shut up," Lorenzo said. His voice was barely a breath, but it commanded absolute silence.
He was staring at Emma, who was safely buried in her mother’s shoulder, lazily twisting the pink hairbrush in her small fingers. Lorenzo took a slow step forward, his massive frame trembling. The ice had shattered completely, leaving behind raw, exposed nerves.
"She called it broken," Lorenzo muttered, his eyes fixed on the silver pocket watch on his desk. "The watch. It stopped at 4:14 PM. The exact minute the car went into the river."
Sophia froze. She looked from the shattered watch to Lorenzo’s haunted face, and for the first time, all her fear dissolved into a deep, piercing wave of empathy. She saw a man who hadn't lived in three years—a man who had been serving a life sentence inside his own mind.
"Mr. Moretti," Sophia said softly, her voice steady and warm. "She didn't mean any harm. She just... she just wants to fix things that are broken."
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Lorenzo looked down at Sophia, kneeling on his study floor holding a child that wasn't his, in a fortress built on blood and paranoia. The wall he had spent three years fortifying crumbled into dust.
"No one," Lorenzo whispered, his voice thick with unshed tears, "has spoken to me like that since the day they died."
