Chapter 2 - The Unseen Soul of the Estate
To survive in the oppressive shadows of the Rossi estate, Beatrice Miller had learned the art of becoming invisible. It was an impossible task for her physical body to achieve. At twenty-eight years old, Beatrice was a large woman in a high-society world that seemed personally offended by every single inch of her existence. Her black uniform pulled tightly across her broad shoulders. The heavy apron strings cut into the softness of her waist. Her thighs brushed softly when she hurried down the polished marble corridors, and every sweeping staircase in the mansion felt like it had been deliberately designed by someone who hated women who needed to breathe.
The other upper-crust staff members did not have to be overtly cruel. Most cruelty was quieter than that. A deliberate pause when she reached for a second dinner roll at the staff table. A subtle smirk when she bent down to pick up dropped towels in the linen room. A whispered conversation that died out the second she entered the laundry area. Beatrice had spent years quietly apologizing for doorways, oversized chairs, family photographs, and the very air she displaced. She had learned to laugh first at herself so no one else could wound her with the joke. She had learned to stand silently in dark corners at political fundraisers she served, lowering her eyes when wealthy women with collarbones like jewelry complained about calorie counts while handing her empty champagne flutes.
But little Lily Rossi had never seen her that way.
To Lily, Beatrice was pure, unfiltered warmth. After the devastating car bombing that killed Lily’s mother two years earlier, the little girl had completely stopped speaking for weeks. High-priced doctors came and went through the heavy iron gates. Elite medical specialists were flown in from Zurich and London. Child psychologists with soft, rehearsed voices sat for hours in the sunroom with imported dolls, colorful cards, and carefully chosen therapeutic words. Nothing worked.
Then, one stormy afternoon, Beatrice found Lily hiding under the grand mahogany kitchen table, shaking violently because a fierce summer thunder had rolled over Lake Michigan like a military explosion. Beatrice had been carrying a heavy silver tray of warm shortbread cookies. Protocol dictated she should have called the nanny immediately. Protocol dictated she should have fetched Leo. Instead, she knelt and sat flat on the hardwood floor with considerable difficulty, pushed a warm cookie beneath the edge of the table, and said softly, “My grandmother used to tell me thunder was just heaven moving its heavy furniture around.”
Lily stared at her with wide, unblinking eyes from the shadows.
Beatrice took a quiet bite from her own cookie. “I never really liked that explanation, though. Heaven should have much better manners.”
A tiny, breathless puff of laughter escaped Lily’s nose. That single sound had changed the trajectory of Beatrice’s life in the mansion. From that day forward, Lily sought her out, slipping away from tutors and nannies to sit in the kitchen pantry while Beatrice peeled potatoes, or holding the hem of her apron while walking through the rose gardens. Beatrice became her anchor in a world that had turned cold and violent.
Yet, Victoria Kensington—who had wormed her way into Leo’s mansion six months ago under the guise of a charitable philanthropist—saw Beatrice as an obstacle. Victoria wanted to cleanse the estate of anything that reminded Leo of his late wife, and that included the quiet, devoted maid who held the child’s heart. Victoria had systematically begun cutting off Lily’s access to Beatrice, culminating in today’s horrific act: locking the asthmatic child in the freezing, dark cellar simply because Lily had cried for Beatrice instead of submitting to Victoria’s cruel demands.
Upstairs in the kitchen, Victoria tried to back toward the side exit, her face pale beneath her expensive makeup. But Mateo blocked her path like a stone wall, his hand resting casually inside his jacket.
“Where do you think you’re going, Victoria?” Mateo asked softly, his voice dripping with venom.
“I am leaving,” Victoria snapped, trying to summon her usual haughty arrogance. “My father is Senator Kensington. When he hears how you animals treated me—!”
May you like
“Your father doesn't own this city anymore, Victoria,” Leo said coldly as he ascended the cellar stairs, carrying Lily wrapped tightly in his own warm coat. His eyes were dead, devoid of any human warmth. “This city belongs to the men you just crossed.”
---
