Chapter 4
The quiet in the entrance hall became absolute and suffocating.
Clara froze on her knees, her brown eyes wide with absolute dread, her lips trembling so violently she could not form a single word. Her chest heaved beneath her white apron as the secret she had guarded with her life lay exposed on the cold marble floor.
Sofie looked confused by the sudden change in atmosphere. She reached out her tiny hand, touching Lorenzo’s crisp white shirt collar. "Mr. Duca? That's my bunny's magic button."
Lorenzo did not answer her immediately. His piercing blue eyes remained fixed on Clara, his mind processing a storm of impossible memories.
Four years ago, the Duca family had been struck by a devastating tragedy. Lorenzo’s younger brother, Julian Duca—the charismatic, brilliant co-ruler of the family network—had vanished during a bloody, mysterious ambush along the Illinois border. Julian’s body had never been recovered from the river, and the silver pendant he wore every day of his life had disappeared with him. Lorenzo had spent four agonizing years believing his brother had been murdered by rival syndicates, hunting down every suspected culprit while carrying the heavy, dark weight of grief alone.
Yet here, inside his own mansion, a three-year-old girl in a pale-yellow floral dress had dropped Julian’s personal silver pendant from the belly of a worn stuffed rabbit.
The heavy, measured footsteps of Rocco, the elderly security chief, approached rapidly across the marble.
Rocco was a tall, broad-shouldered man in his late sixties with short silver-gray hair, a neatly trimmed gray beard, and serious eyes that had seen forty years of Duca history. He wore a perfectly tailored black suit, a crisp white dress shirt, a black tie, and a discreet earpiece. He had been a loyal friend to Lorenzo’s late father and had treated Julian and Lorenzo like his own sons.
Rocco stopped beside Lorenzo, his eyes dropping to the silver pendant resting in Lorenzo’s hand.
Rocco’s weathered face instantly drained of all color. His jaw dropped, his breath catching sharply in his throat as he recognized the engraved crest and the distinct, hand-carved initials on the reverse side: J.D.
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Rocco looked from the silver pendant up to Sofie's innocent, golden-haired face, his eyes wide with absolute horror and breathtaking realization.
"Boss..." Rocco whispered, his voice a shocked, trembling whisper that shook the dead silence of the hall. "...that pendant belonged to your dead brother."
