Chapter 4 - The Poisoned Envelope
The warmth of the previous night evaporated the moment I walked down to the kitchen for breakfast the next morning. Lorenzo was already gone, drawn away by an early emergency meeting. In his place, sitting neatly beside my coffee mug, was a crisp, unmarked white envelope.
My instincts, honed by years of surviving toxic relationships and corporate gaslighting, screamed in protest. With trembling fingers, I opened the flap and pulled out the contents.
Inside were six crisp photographs.
Six women. Six faces of the previous brides who had fled the Duca estate. At the top of the pile was Bianca Romano, her expression captured during a gala years ago. But it was the back of the photographs that made my blood run cold. Written in bold, aggressive black ink were five chilling words:
ASK WHY SHE REALLY LEFT.
I dropped the coffee mug. It shattered against the tile floor, hot liquid splashing across my bare feet, but I didn't feel it. My mind raced in blind panic. This house was a fortress. It had motion sensors, biometric gate scanners, armed guards patrolling the perimeter every twenty minutes, and high-definition security cameras covering every square inch of the interior.
How had an intruder slipped past all of that just to leave a psychological landmine beside my coffee?
Marco burst into the kitchen three seconds later, his hand instinctively resting on the grip of his shoulder holster, his eyes scanning the room for threats. When he saw my pale face and the scattered photographs on the island, his professional composure cracked.
“Amelia. Step away from the table,” Marco ordered sharply, pulling out his encrypted radio. “Lock down the east wing. Sweep the perimeter. Now.”
Within ten minutes, the entire estate transformed into a military zone. Guards swarmed the hallways, tech specialists pulled server logs, and the atmosphere grew suffocatingly tense. When Lorenzo’s black SUV tore up the gravel driveway and he stormed through the front doors, his face was a mask of unbridled fury.
He didn't yell at Marco. He didn't yell at the security team. He walked straight into the kitchen, his dark eyes locking onto the photographs scattered across the marble.
When he looked up at me, his expression wasn't angry—it was terrified. Not for himself, but for what was coming for me.
“Who brought this in?” Lorenzo’s voice dropped to a lethal, vibrating register.
May you like
“That’s the problem,” I said, my voice shaking despite my best efforts to stay steady. “Nobody broke in, Lorenzo. The cameras show zero entries through the perimeter. Whoever left this... they’re already inside your house. Or worse, someone on your payroll is handing them the keys.”
Lorenzo stared at me, and for the first time, I saw the true weight of his isolation. Six women had walked away because they thought the danger came from him. They were wrong. The danger was hunting him from the shadows, and now, it had marked its target on my back.
