Chapter 2 - The Shattered Mirror
Emma pressed her thumb into the soft cotton of her stuffed rabbit. “She was crying, Mr. Moretti. She said, Please find me, Aleandro, real quiet like a whisper. Then a dark man stood in the hallway window.”
The air in the room temperature plummeted. Aleandro’s mind reeled back, reassembling every detail of the last forty-eight hours. Isabella hadn’t bugged his office to spy on him for an enemy. She had been trapped. She knew the clock was the one object in the estate Aleandro would examine with obsessive care if he suspected a security breach. She had left him a beacon, knowing that only a direct tip from inside the house would force him to pull his father’s woodwork from the wall.
“Emma,” Aleandro said, keeping his voice dead calm. “Did the dark man see you?”
“No, sir. I was under the linen cart.”
“You did very well.” Aleandro reached into his pocket, drew out a heavy silver medallion bearing the Moretti crest, and pressed it into her small palm. “Take this to your mother. Tell her to lock the kitchen doors and stay inside until I come for you.”
The moment the child vanished into the corridor, Aleandro pulled his burner phone and dialed his head of security, Vance.
“Where is Isabella?” Aleandro demanded.
“She’s in her quarters, Don Moretti,” Vance answered over the static. “She requested privacy at seven o'clock. We have guards posted at the eastern gate.”
“Check her room. Right now.”
A tense sixty seconds passed. Over the line, Aleandro heard the muffled sound of heavy boots on hardwood, the key turning in the lock, and then a sharp gasp from Vance.
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“Don Moretti... she’s gone. The balcony doors are smashed. There’s blood on the velvet curtains.”
Aleandro’s chest locked tight. He didn't yell. He didn't throw the glass on his desk. He simply felt the warm, human part of his soul turn into cold pig iron. The enemy was already inside his perimeter, and they had taken the only thing that made his dark life worth living.
