Chapter 2 - The Fall of Victoria Kensington
The marble tiles of the grand kitchen felt like ice against Beatrice’s knees, but she didn’t move. Her left cheek burned where Victoria’s diamond-studded ring had caught her skin, drawing a thin line of crimson that now smeared across her jaw. Above them, the heavy crystal chandelier gave off a dull, oppressive hum, reflecting a room that had just stepped backward into the dark ages.
Leo Rossi stood at the foot of the cellar stairs, holding his daughter as if she were made of spun glass. Lily’s breath came in ragged, uneven hitches, every inhalation sounding like dry leaves dragged across asphalt.
“Mateo,” Leo said without turning around. His voice was no longer a human voice; it was the sound of a glacier cracking across an abyss.
“Boss,” Mateo stepped forward, his knuckles still wrapped around the heavy brass ring of keys he had stripped from Victoria’s pocket.
“Take Lily to the medical wing. Get Dr. Vance on the secure line immediately. Tell him if he isn’t at the estate in five minutes, he won’t have to worry about his medical license anymore because he won’t have hands to hold a scalpel.”
“Done,” Mateo said, his face carved from granite. He knelt beside Leo, his movements gentle despite his bulk, and scooped the sleeping, trembling child into his arms. Lily whimpered softly against Mateo’s black vest, her small fingers clutching the frayed ear of her stuffed rabbit.
As Mateo carried her toward the private elevator, Leo rose slowly to his full height.
He didn’t look at Victoria yet. He looked down at Beatrice, who was still kneeling on the floor, trying to catch her breath through the bruised ribs Victoria’s booted foot had gifted her.
Leo extended one large, scarred hand.
Beatrice blinked up at him, her heart hammering against her ribs. In the three years she had worked at the Rossi estate, she had never been touched by the master of the house—except perhaps when he walked past her in the narrow corridor and murmured a brief, absent “Pardon me, Beatrice.” She placed her swollen, trembling hand into his.
His grip was hot, heavy, and absolute. He pulled her up with effortless strength, setting her firmly on her feet.
“Can you walk?” he asked.
“Yes, Mr. Rossi,” she whispered, her voice shaking.
“Stay right there,” he instructed, his eyes fixed on a point just behind her.
Then, Leo turned around.
Victoria Kensington had retreated until her back hit the mahogany cabinets of the pantry. Her immaculate ivory trousers were spotless, her blonde hair was perfectly pinned, but her eyes—those cold, calculating eyes that usually looked down on the entire eastern seaboard—were wide with unadulterated panic.
“Leo,” she began, her voice pitching upward into a breathless laugh. “You’re acting irrational. That little maid—she’s a liar, she’s unstable, she probably staged the whole thing for attention! Do you have any idea what my father will do when he hears you allowed a servant to—?”
Leo didn’t let her finish. He walked toward her, each step sounding like the gavel of a judge falling on a death sentence.
“Your father,” Leo said softly, stopping two inches from her face, “is a United States Senator who currently sits on three committees that my money keeps funded. Do you know what happens when a senator’s daughter tries to murder my child?”
“I didn’t murder her!” Victoria shrieked, her veneer cracking completely. “She was crying! She wouldn’t shut up! Her wheezing was giving me a migraine! I just put her in the dark for ten minutes to teach her some discipline!”
“Discipline,” Leo repeated. The word tasted like poison in his mouth.
He reached out.
Victoria flinched, bracing for a blow, but Leo didn't strike her. Instead, with two fingers, he reached up to her left ear and ripped the four-carat diamond stud clean through her lobe. A tiny bead of blood welled up, but Victoria didn’t feel the pain; she felt only the terrifying weight of his gaze.
He held the diamond up to the light, then dropped it onto the floor, crushing it beneath the heel of his shoe with a sickening crunch.
“Mateo!” Leo roared without turning.
The heavy oak doors swung open. Mateo stood there, his face expressionless.
“Get her things,” Leo commanded. “Every dress, every shoe, every piece of jewelry her father’s stolen money bought. Put them in trash bags and throw them on the front drive.”
“And Victoria?” Mateo asked, his eyes gleaming with dark satisfaction.
“Drag her out to the gates,” Leo said, his voice dropping into a register so cold it froze the air in the room. “Leave her in the snow without a coat, without a phone, and without a car. If any cab company in Chicago picks her up within twenty miles of this estate, they answer to me.”
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“Leo! You can’t do this to me! I am Victoria Kensington!” she screamed as Mateo’s heavy hands clamped around her arms, lifting her off her feet as if she weighed nothing at all. “You’ll regret this! My father will destroy you!”
“Your father,” Leo whispered as they dragged her past him, “is next.”
