Chapter 2 - The Cruel Verdict
Beatrice lifted her head. Blood had dried along the side of her face, dark against her pale skin.
Her maid’s uniform was torn at the shoulder, the white apron streaked with dust from the hallway floor. Her wide chest rose and fell with frantic breaths she could barely control.
“The cellar,” she whispered. “She locked Lily in the cellar. She doesn’t have her inhaler. Mr. Rossi, she was wheezing, and then she just…”
Her voice broke.
Victoria let out a sharp, nervous laugh that sounded like glass cracking.
“Leo, darling, this is absurd. The child was having a tantrum. Beatrice attacked me. Look at her. She’s hysterical.”
Leo turned his head.
Victoria stopped talking.
He did not have to threaten her. Not yet. The look he gave her made every word in her mouth die before it could become another lie.
“The key,” he said.
Victoria’s polished smile trembled. “Leo—”
“The key.”
Beatrice watched Victoria’s hand twitch toward the pocket of her ivory slacks.
Mateo Calder, Leo’s oldest friend and the closest thing he had to a brother, stepped behind her without a sound. Mateo had the face of a man who had learned young that mercy was expensive and often wasted.
He caught Victoria’s wrist, reached into her pocket, and pulled out the heavy brass ring of household keys.
Victoria gasped. “You can’t touch me. Do you know who my father is?”
Mateo tossed the keys to Leo.
Leo caught them without looking away from the cellar door.
“Beatrice,” he said, his voice changing for the first time. “Is Lily’s inhaler in her room?”
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“Bedside drawer. Top one. Pink case.”
Mateo was already moving before Leo finished turning the key. He took the stairs two at a time.
