Chapter 2 - The Secret Inside the Rabbit
Leo took the stairs three at a time.
Marco was directly behind him.
Victoria remained below.
For one second, she looked less frightened by the strange man upstairs than Leo expected.
That bothered him.
It bothered Marco too.
Leo reached the second floor.
"Sofia!"
The family doctor stood outside the study, startled.
"She ran toward her bedroom. She said she heard something."
Leo passed him.
Sofia’s bedroom door was closed.
He tried the handle.
Locked.
"Sofia?"
No answer.
Marco reached for his weapon beneath his jacket.
Leo shook his head.
His daughter was inside.
No unnecessary risk.
He knocked once.
"Sofia, it’s Daddy."
A muffled sob.
Then a man said, "Don’t come in."
Leo’s entire body became still.
Marco silently signaled two security men toward the adjoining hallway.
Leo stood inches from the door.
"Who are you?"
No answer.
"If you touch her—"
"I’m not hurting the kid."
Leo recognized something in the voice.
Not confidence.
Panic.
The man inside was afraid too.
"Then open the door."
"I can’t."
"Why?"
"Because Kensington will destroy me."
Leo’s eyes narrowed.
Kensington.
Not Victoria.
The family name.
"Who sent you?"
Silence.
Then Sofia cried, "Daddy, he took my bunny."
Leo’s gaze sharpened.
The stranger had come for the rabbit.
Or what had been hidden inside it.
Leo lowered his voice.
"Listen carefully. Put the rabbit down. Open the door. Walk out with your hands where we can see them."
"I need the drive."
Drive.
So the white object was digital storage.
A flash drive.
Leo finally understood.
His late wife had hidden information inside their daughter’s stuffed rabbit.
And Victoria had found it.
"Who told you about the drive?"
The man said nothing.
Leo heard movement.
Marco leaned close.
"Balcony," he whispered.
Sofia’s bedroom had French doors opening onto a small stone balcony.
Two guards were already moving through the neighboring room.
Leo kept talking.
"Whatever she promised you, it’s over."
"You don’t know these people."
"I know enough."
"No, you don’t."
A lock clicked.
Not the bedroom door.
The balcony.
Marco’s eyes shifted.
Leo waited.
A crash sounded inside.
Sofia screamed.
Leo slammed his shoulder into the bedroom door.
Once.
Twice.
The frame split.
He entered.
The stranger was climbing over the balcony railing.
A guard grabbed him from outside.
They struggled.
Leo barely looked at them.
Sofia was crouched beside her bed.
He dropped to his knees.
"Come here."
She ran to him.
The torn rabbit lay nearby.
Its stuffing had been pulled out.
Leo held his daughter while Marco and the guards dragged the intruder back into the room.
The man was perhaps thirty.
Thin.
Sweating.
Dressed like one of the temporary catering workers hired for the engagement dinner.
Marco removed his phone and wallet.
"Name."
"Ryan Cole."
Leo looked at him.
"Who hired you?"
Ryan glanced at Sofia.
Leo carried her into the hallway and gave her to the doctor.
"Stay with Dr. Harris."
"I want you."
"I’ll be right here."
"Promise?"
Leo touched her cheek.
"Promise."
When Sofia was safely beyond earshot, he returned.
Ryan was on his knees.
Not because anyone had forced him there.
He looked like his legs had stopped working.
"I didn’t know the kid would be in the room."
Leo stood in front of him.
"Who hired you?"
Ryan stared at the carpet.
"Kensington Holdings."
Marco frowned.
Victoria’s family corporation.
Leo folded his arms.
"That’s not a person."
"Charles Kensington."
Victoria’s father.
Leo’s expression did not change.
But Marco glanced at him.
The engagement had never been only romantic.
Everyone knew that.
Leo Rossi controlled a private shipping and logistics empire that had inherited darker associations from his father’s generation. Leo had spent years making most of his fortune legitimate.
Charles Kensington wanted access to that infrastructure.
Leo had wanted distance from the violence attached to his own surname.
Victoria had seemed like a doorway into another life.
Clean charities.
Museum boards.
Private schools.
A polished future for Sofia.
Now a terrified hired man was telling him Victoria’s father had sent someone into his daughter’s bedroom.
"Why?"
Ryan swallowed.
"The drive."
"What’s on it?"
"I don’t know."
"Where is it?"
"Victoria had it."
"Had?"
Ryan looked up.
"She called me twenty minutes ago. Said she couldn’t keep it on her."
Leo’s stomach tightened.
"Where did she put it?"
"She was supposed to hide it in the girl’s room. I was supposed to find it and leave through the service entrance."
Marco said, "Why Sofia’s room?"
"So if anyone caught me, it would look like I was stealing jewelry."
Leo stared at Ryan.
"Did Victoria know you would enter while Sofia was upstairs?"
Ryan shook his head rapidly.
"She said the kid would be locked downstairs."
That sentence changed the air in the room.
Marco’s jaw tightened.
Leo’s hands remained at his sides.
Ryan realized too late what he had said.
"So Victoria locked her in the cellar because she needed her bedroom empty."
"I—I guess."
Leo stepped closer.
"You guess?"
"That’s what she told me."
"What exactly did she say?"
Ryan closed his eyes.
"She said, ‘The child won’t be a problem.’"
Leo walked away before anger could make the decision for him.
He went downstairs.
Victoria was gone.
The front doors were open.
One of the guards approached.
"Mr. Rossi, she left through the conservatory."
"Alone?"
"Her father’s driver picked her up."
Marco came down behind Leo.
"She knew the camera angles."
Leo looked at him.
"She knew more than that."
Elena remained in the kitchen.
Her face was pale.
Leo approached.
"You said my wife hid the drive."
Elena nodded.
"I was working as a night nurse before you hired me permanently."
Leo remembered.
Elena had been assigned through the hospital during his wife Isabella’s final month.
Cancer had taken Isabella slowly.
Sofia had been three.
Leo had spent nearly every night beside the hospital bed.
He remembered grief.
He remembered medications.
He remembered Isabella asking strange questions about business records.
At the time he thought she was afraid for Sofia’s financial future.
Now he wondered.
"What did you see?"
Elena spoke quietly.
"Mrs. Rossi asked me to bring Sofia’s rabbit."
"Why?"
"She said she wanted to fix one of the seams."
"That was all?"
Elena hesitated.
"No."
Leo waited.
"She asked me whether I trusted you."
He looked at her.
"What did you say?"
"I said yes."
"And?"
"She said, ‘Then if anything ever feels wrong around Sofia, call him. Even if someone tells you not to.’"
Elena looked toward the floor.
"That’s why I called you today."
Leo absorbed the words.
Isabella had predicted something.
Not necessarily Victoria.
Something.
"What else?"
"She put the white drive inside the rabbit and sewed it shut."
"Did she tell you what was on it?"
"No."
"Did she tell anyone else?"
Elena shook her head.
Then paused.
"Maybe."
Leo saw it.
"Who?"
"Your brother."
Leo went still.
"Adrian?"
Elena nodded.
"He visited Mrs. Rossi the night before she died."
Leo and his younger brother had not spoken in almost two years.
Adrian Rossi had left New York after a brutal family dispute.
Their father had died leaving a complicated network of companies and debts.
Leo had taken control.
Adrian believed Leo had pushed him out.
Leo believed Adrian had nearly destroyed the business through reckless investments.
Neither had forgiven the other.
"What happened during that visit?"
"I don’t know. Mrs. Rossi asked everyone to leave."
Leo looked away.
Marco entered the kitchen holding a tablet.
"I found something."
He placed it on the counter.
"Ryan’s phone."
There were messages.
Most were encrypted.
One thread was not.
V.K.
Victoria Kensington.
Marco opened it.
Leo read.
11:08 a.m.
VICTORIA: The rabbit had something inside.
11:09 a.m.
RYAN: What?
11:09 a.m.
VICTORIA: A drive. She hid it years ago.
11:10 a.m.
RYAN: Destroy it.
11:10 a.m.
VICTORIA: Dad says no. He wants to know what Isabella found.
Leo stopped.
Isabella found.
Not created.
Found.
He scrolled.
11:21 a.m.
VICTORIA: The girl saw me take it.
11:21 a.m.
RYAN: Then distract her.
11:22 a.m.
VICTORIA: Already handled.
Leo’s thumb froze.
Already handled.
His daughter had been treated like an inconvenience in a corporate problem.
He continued.
12:04 p.m.
VICTORIA: Maid is becoming difficult.
12:05 p.m.
RYAN: Fire her.
12:05 p.m.
VICTORIA: Done.
12:07 p.m.
VICTORIA: She keeps asking for the cellar key.
12:08 p.m.
RYAN: Don’t give it back.
Leo handed the phone to Marco.
"Copy everything."
Elena looked sick.
"I knew she was cruel. I didn’t know this was bigger."
Leo looked at her injuries.
"Why didn’t you tell me sooner?"
Her face tightened.
"Because every time I tried, Victoria was with you."
"I have a phone."
"She told the staff your private number was for emergencies only."
"This was an emergency."
"Not at first."
Elena looked ashamed.
"It started small."
Leo hated those words.
"What started?"
"Comments."
"About?"
"Sofia."
Elena began counting them without meaning to.
Victoria criticized Sofia’s eating.
Her clothes.
Her toys.
The way she spoke about Isabella.
The way she slept with the hallway light on.
The number of times she hugged Leo.
"She told Sofia you would have new children someday," Elena said. "She said older daughters needed to learn not to be jealous."
Leo’s face went hard.
"Sofia never told me."
"She thought you agreed."
That cut deeper than anything else.
"Why?"
"Victoria told her you did."
Leo turned away.
His daughter had spent weeks—or months—believing her father had quietly approved her humiliation.
He thought of every business trip.
Every late dinner.
Every time Victoria offered to "give him a break" by handling bedtime.
He had mistaken intrusion for help.
The doctor came downstairs.
"Sofia has no serious injuries."
Leo exhaled.
"She’s dehydrated and frightened. The abrasion on her arm is superficial. I’d still like to observe her for the evening."
"Do it."
"She keeps asking for you."
Leo started upstairs.
Elena called his name.
"Mr. Rossi."
He turned.
"I’m sorry."
"For what?"
"For not stopping it sooner."
Leo looked at her.
"You bled trying to open that cellar door."
"I should have called sooner."
"You called."
"But—"
"You called."
Elena’s eyes filled.
Leo continued.
"Victoria told Sofia I would send her away."
Elena nodded.
"She also told the staff you wanted fewer people around Sofia."
"I never said that."
"I know."
"Did anyone else know?"
"Some suspected."
"Names."
Elena gave him three.
A housekeeper.
A driver.
Sofia’s tutor.
Leo ordered Marco to bring them in.
No threats.
No intimidation.
Just statements.
He wanted facts.
By evening, the picture had become worse.
The housekeeper had heard Victoria tell Sofia that "real daughters don’t manipulate their fathers with tears."
The driver had once found Sofia crying in the garage after Victoria canceled a visit to Isabella’s grave.
The tutor had been instructed not to assign family-tree projects because Victoria said, "We are moving on from the dead."
Leo sat alone in his study after Sofia finally fell asleep on the couch.
The torn rabbit lay on his desk.
He turned it over.
There.
Near the old seam Isabella had repaired.
Tiny stitches.
He remembered teasing her because the stitches were crooked.
She had smiled from her hospital bed.
"I was never good at sewing."
He had kissed her forehead.
That memory nearly destroyed him now.
There was another seam beneath the rabbit’s foot.
Newer.
Cut recently.
Victoria had found the drive there.
Leo examined the stuffing.
Something hard pressed against his fingers.
He pulled it out.
Not the flash drive.
A folded strip of paper.
Isabella’s handwriting.
Only six words.
LEO—IF THIS IS OPEN, TRUST ELENA.
His vision blurred.
He read it again.
Trust Elena.
He leaned back.
Isabella had known.
Maybe not about Victoria.
But she had known someone might eventually open the toy.
There was writing on the other side.
A phone number.
And one name.
ADRIAN.
Leo stared at his brother’s name for a long time.
Then his phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
No one spoke.
"Hello?"
Breathing.
Then a man’s voice.
His brother’s voice.
"Leo."
Leo stood.
"Adrian?"
"You found the rabbit."
Leo’s grip tightened around the phone.
"Where are you?"
"That doesn’t matter."
"What did Isabella put on that drive?"
Silence.
"Adrian."
His brother finally said, "Proof."
"Of what?"
Another pause.
May you like
Then Adrian whispered, "That Charles Kensington was involved in Isabella’s death."
The line went dead.
