Chapter 1 - The Breaking Glass
The sound of breaking glass echoed through the mansion before I even reached the study.
I was only four years old.
I was hiding in the basement staff quarters with my stuffed rabbit pressed against my chest.
I heard something crash upstairs.
My mother, Maria, had warned me many times.
“Emma, stay here no matter what happens. The men upstairs are dangerous.”
She wasn’t trying to scare me.
She was trying to protect me.
But the silence that followed the crash felt worse than the noise itself.
I waited.
One second.
Five seconds.
A full minute.
Then my small feet carried me toward the servant staircase.
My pink backpack bounced against my shoulders as I climbed higher into the mansion where I was never supposed to go alone.
At the end of the second-floor hallway, the door to Mr. Moretti’s private study was slightly open.
Warm light spilled onto the marble floor.
I pushed the door wider.
And froze.
Alejandro Moretti was lying beside his desk.
Everyone in the city knew his name.
People lowered their voices when they spoke about him. Guards followed him everywhere. Even adults who weren’t afraid of much became careful around him.
But that night, he wasn’t the powerful man everyone feared.
He was someone who couldn’t breathe.
His face had lost its color. His breathing was weak and uneven. One hand gripped his throat while the other reached helplessly toward the broken wineglass beside him.
Then I smelled something strange.
Something bitter. Like burnt almonds and sour fruit.
“Mr. Moretti?” I whispered.
His eyes moved toward me.
He tried to answer, but only a faint sound came out.
And I knew that sound.
Because I had heard it before.
Years earlier, I had suffered a severe allergic reaction. I remembered my mother’s terrified voice, the panic in the room, and the feeling that my own body was fighting against me.
I knew what was happening.
He was having the same kind of emergency. He was poisoned.
I ran downstairs, ignoring the rules.
Inside my rabbit backpack was my last emergency injector.
The one my mother had struggled to afford, working double shifts just to buy.
That morning, she had held my hands and told me:
“This is only for when you truly need it, Emma.”
I looked at the injector.
Then I thought about the man upstairs.
He truly needed it.
When I returned to the study, two guards were already blocking the doorway.
“What are you doing here?” the taller one, Marcus, demanded.
“He needs this,” I said, holding up the pen.
Marcus stepped forward, his eyes darting nervously.
“You don’t touch him. Get out of here, kid.”
I held the injector tighter.
“My mom will lose her job if I help him?” I asked, my voice trembling but stubborn.
No one answered. The second guard, Leo, looked pale and unsure.
I looked at Alejandro, barely conscious on the floor. His lips were turning blue.
“Then she loses it.”
I pushed past their towering legs.
I dropped beside him, removed the safety cap, and pressed the injector firmly into his thigh.
Click.
The room went silent.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then Alejandro’s fingers twitched.
His hand closed around my wrist. Not in anger, but in desperation.
His eyes opened, gasping for a massive intake of air.
And that was when Leo noticed something hidden behind the bookshelf.
A tiny red light.
A recording device.
Leo’s expression changed completely.
Because the camera had captured everything.
Who entered the room.
May you like
Who poured the wine.
And who had been standing there, watching Alejandro Moretti collapse, doing absolutely nothing to stop it.
