Chapter 2 - The Cream-Colored Trap
The heavy air in the service hallway turned to liquid lead.
I stared at the cream-colored memo in Elena’s hand. The crisp, expensive stationary bore the official Moretti Estate header—the exact paper stock reserved for executive household operations.
"That's impossible," I breathed, my voice barely a whisper as I squeezed Lily tighter against my side. "I didn't write any memo. I don't even have administrative authorization to issue nursery access orders. Only you and Caleb have those system privileges!"
Elena looked at me with cold, aristocratic pity. "Maya, your digital signature is stamped right at the bottom. Your staff ID badge was used to log into the terminal in the butler’s pantry at 6:48 p.m."
"My badge was on my belt all evening!" I protested, reaching for my waist.
My hand touched empty fabric.
My heart plummeted into a dark, bottomless abyss. My plastic staff access badge—the blue keycard required to enter service corridors and administrative offices—was missing from my belt loop.
"Looking for this?" Caleb asked, stepping forward. He pulled my blue keycard out of his jacket pocket. "Found it dropped right outside the third-floor fire exit stairwell two minutes ago, Maya."
"You set me up!" I cried out, standing up to face Caleb and Elena. The fear that had paralyzed me moments ago was instantly replaced by a mother’s fierce, protective rage. "I have been in the main kitchen since five o'clock helping Chef Henri prep forty plates of roast chicken! Forty people saw me in the kitchen! Why would I order a nurse out of the nursery?"
"Because you were desperate for money, Maya," Elena said smoothly, pulling a thin printout from her folder. "We ran a background check on your personal banking records twenty minutes ago when the nursery alarm was first triggered. You owe eighty-five thousand dollars in medical bills from your late husband’s cancer treatments. Your bank threatened foreclosure on your apartment two weeks ago."
Elena turned to Rocco, her voice dripping with calculated sympathy. "Rocco, she was going to kidnap Matteo and hold him for ransom. She used her daughter as a cover. Who would suspect a little girl walking through the halls?"
I looked at Rocco Moretti.
The billionaire mafia boss was standing motionless under the bright halogen lights of the hallway, holding his tiny son against his chest. His graying temples caught the light, and his expression was completely unreadable.
If Rocco believed Elena... Lily and I would not leave this estate alive. In his world, people who threatened a boss’s newborn child vanished without a trace, their names erased from official records before sunrise.
Lily felt my body shaking. She looked up at Rocco, her innocent blue eyes wide and clear.
"The lady with the red hair is lying," Lily said plainly, her small voice echoing off the tile walls.
Elena’s eyes flashed with sudden anger. "Excuse me?"
Lily pointed her finger at Elena’s velvet dress. "That lady was in the pantry before me. She dropped her shiny gold pen under the potato sack. It went clink."
Elena’s face drained of every drop of color. Her hand instinctively moved to her leather clutch purse.
Rocco’s sharp gray eyes slowly shifted from the memo in Elena’s hand down to my daughter.
"A gold pen, Lily?" Rocco asked softly.
"Yes," Lily nodded earnestly. "A gold pen with a big purple stone on the top. She put the baby on the blanket and walked out fast because she heard me coming."
May you like
Rocco turned his gaze toward Elena. His voice dropped into an icy, terrifying register that made even Caleb Stone take a step back.
"Elena," Rocco said quietly. "Where is the Montblanc ballpoint pen with the amethyst cap that Mara gave you for your birthday last year?"
