Chapter 2 - The Exiling of Victoria Kensington
The kitchen air was thick with the scent of ozone, fear, and scorched sugar from a pot left unattended on the stove.
Leo Rossi carried his daughter out of the dark stone descent with an agonizing tenderness that defied every rumor whispered about him across the Chicago boardrooms and underground gambling dens. His jaw was clenched so tight a muscle ticked in his temple, carving a deep groove into skin hardened by a dozen assassination attempts and territorial wars.
He laid Lily gently across the plush velvet sofa in the private family parlor, kneeling beside her to monitor the steady rise and fall of her chest. The blue tint around her lips was fading, replaced by a healthy, flush pink as the albuterol opened her airways.
Beatrice stood a few paces behind them, wiping blood from her split lip with the back of her swollen hand. She tried to make herself small, sinking into the shadows near the heavy mahogany bookshelf, bracing herself for the inevitable dismissal. In every house she had ever worked, trouble always rolled downhill, and the maid at the bottom was always crushed.
“She’s breathing normally now, Boss,” Mateo reported softly from the doorway, his eyes dark and watchful. He had left Victoria standing in the kitchen like a statue caught in a winter storm.
Leo did not turn around immediately. He kept his large, calloused hand resting gently on Lily’s forehead, brushing stray dark curls away from her damp skin.
“Is she asleep?” Leo asked, his voice a low, gravelly rumble.
“Deep sleep,” Beatrice answered quietly. “The exhaustion and the panic took everything out of her. She’ll need to sleep for a few hours, but her lungs are clear.”
Leo slowly rose to his feet. He turned around, towering over the room, and walked out into the corridor where Victoria Kensington was waiting.
Victoria had recovered some of her composure. She had smoothed down the front of her ivory slacks and adjusted the diamond tennis bracelet on her wrist, though her fingers trembled slightly. She had spent two years positioning herself to become Mrs. Leo Rossi, imagining herself walking down the aisle of Holy Name Cathedral with the most feared man in the Midwest on her arm. She refused to let a kitchen servant and a sickly child unravel it.
“Leo,” Victoria began, her voice dropping into that smooth, honeyed register she used when she wanted to convince him of her innocence. “You’re overreacting. That little brat has tantrums every time she doesn't get her way. She threw a glass vase at my antique mirror yesterday morning. I only wanted to teach her some discipline—to show her that actions have consequences in this house.”
Leo stopped three feet from her.
He didn't yell. He didn't raise a finger.
“Discipline,” Leo repeated. The word sounded like a blade sliding out of its scabbard.
“Yes, discipline!” Victoria pressed, gaining false confidence from his silence. “You’ve let her run wild since Clara died. You’re raising a spoiled, hysterical child, and that maid encourages it! Beatrice has been turning the staff against me for months. She looks at me with pure venom every time I walk into a room. You need to fire them both. Tonight.”
Leo reached out.
His hand closed around the back of Victoria’s neck, his fingers tangling in her expensive blonde blowout, and he forced her back against the paneled oak wall with a sharp, heavy thud that rattled the framed oil paintings.
Victoria let out a breathless gasp, her eyes flying wide with genuine terror.
“Leo! What are you—!”
“You locked a six-year-old child with severe asthma in a freezing, unventilated stone cellar,” Leo said, his face inches from hers. His dark eyes were dead, devoid of any human warmth. “You heard her coughing through the wood. You heard her scratching at the door. And you sat at the island, sipping your wine, and watched the clock tick.”
“She was screaming! She was driving me insane!” Victoria sobbed, panic finally breaking through her vanity. “Your friends were coming over for dinner! What was I supposed to do?”
“You were supposed to be human,” Leo whispered.
He released her so abruptly she stumbled forward, catching herself against the foyer table.
Mateo stepped out of the shadow, holding two heavy leather suitcases that had been tossed down the grand staircase. He dropped them with a loud, hollow crash at Victoria’s feet.
“Your things,” Mateo said flatly.
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“You can’t do this!” Victoria shrieked, her voice echoing up the vaulted stairwell. “My father is Senator Kensington! He will federalize every agency in Illinois to bring this house down! He’ll put you and every single one of your thugs away for the rest of your lives!”
“Tell Arthur that if he sends so much as a traffic cop near my gates,” Leo said, turning his back on her and walking back toward the parlor, “I will publish every bank record, payoff slip, and extortion tape I’ve collected on him since 2012. You have ten minutes to get off my property, Victoria. After that, Mateo stops counting.”
