Chapter 1 - The Missing Button
The cellar air was thick with the scent of copper and old dust. Sophia pressed a clean linen apron firmly against the dark stain blooming across Lorenzo’s chest. His breathing was shallow, a wet rattle in his throat, but his gray eyes—usually cold and unreadable—focused on her with terrifying intensity.
"Vincent..." Lorenzo rasped behind the heavy black tape covering his lower face.
Sophia reached up with trembling fingers and carefully peeled the tape back from his mouth.
"Don't speak, Don Lorenzo," she whispered, her hands covered in his blood. "Marco is on his way. Dr. Ricci is coming."
"Vincent," Lorenzo repeated, his voice low, gravelly, but sharp as a razor. "He took... the drive. From the desk."
Sophia’s mind raced back to two hours ago. She remembered standing outside Lorenzo’s study with the espresso tray, watching Vincent Romano sit in Lorenzo’s chair with that eerie, triumphant smile. She remembered the rattle of porcelain. But her memory pushed further, focusing on a detail she had overlooked in her initial terror.
When Vincent walked out of the study ten minutes later, he had been buttoning his suit jacket. His hand had paused at his chest, his fingers searching blindly for something that wasn't there.
A missing button.
Sophia looked down at the cold stone floor near the iron chair. There, sitting in the puddle of dark blood near Lorenzo’s right shoe, was a single, heavy horn button carved with the crest of the Romano family—a stylized crest that only Vincent and his immediate bloodline wore on their custom suits.
"Mama," Emma’s small voice called from the third stair. She was hugging Biscotti tightly against her chest, the cat purring softly despite the tension in the room. "Is Uncle Lorenzo going to eat dinner with us?"
"Yes, baby," Sophia said, her voice cracking as she picked up the horn button and slipped it deep into her apron pocket, right beside Emma's broken pink scissors. "He's just going to take a little rest first."
The heavy wooden pantry door at the top of the stairs creaked open. Footsteps—fast, heavy, and deliberate—descended into the gloom.
Sophia pulled Emma behind her back, her thumb slipping into her apron to clutch the handle of the broken plastic scissors.
Marco Bruno emerged from the shadows. His dark coat was damp with rain, a silenced pistol held low at his side. Beside him was Dr. Enzo Ricci, carrying a heavy leather medical bag.
"Clear the room," Marco commanded, his sharp eyes sweeping the cellar in three seconds flat. He saw the blood, the plastic restraints, and the broken scissors on the floor. "Sophia, take the girl upstairs to the pantry. Do not go into the main hall."
"Vincent is upstairs," Sophia whispered, her voice steady despite her trembling knees. "He took something from the desk. And he left this."
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She pulled the crest-carved horn button from her pocket and placed it into Marco’s gloved palm.
Marco stared at the button, his face turning to solid granite. "That bastard."
