Chapter 5 - Shadows of the Rossi Estate
Leo Rossi owned nightclubs, freight companies, restaurants, private security firms, and half the favors in Chicago.
People in the city said his name softly. Men who thought themselves dangerous lowered their voices when he entered.
He was broad-shouldered and dark-eyed, with a scar along his left brow and a way of looking through people that made confessions rise in their throats.
But with Lily, Leo became someone else.
He knelt to tie her shoes. He let her place flower stickers on his phone case. He carried her to bed when she fell asleep during old cartoons.
He called her princess with an accent that softened the edges of him.
And Beatrice respected that.
Maybe she even forgave him for the fear he carried into every room, because she had seen him sitting in the nursery at midnight, holding one of his late wife’s scarves and weeping so quietly that only the house heard him.
Then Victoria Kensington arrived.
Victoria did not walk into the Rossi estate. She entered it like a verdict.
She was thirty-two, sleek and pale and glittering, with platinum hair, expensive cheekbones, and a smile that had never been asked to mean anything kind.
Her father owned shipping interests from New York to Savannah. Her family appeared in society columns, charity boards, and photographs from galas where everyone wore white and pretended not to know where the money came from.
Leo introduced her to the household on a Thursday.
“This is Victoria,” he said, one hand resting lightly against the small of her back. “She will be living here soon.”
Victoria smiled at the staff. Her eyes passed over Beatrice without stopping.
That was the first warning.
May you like
Beautiful women usually looked at Beatrice too long, just enough to measure themselves against her and feel victorious. Victoria barely looked at her at all.
To Victoria, Beatrice was not competition. She was furniture.
