Chapter 3 - The Scullery Maid
She looked like she had just sprinted through a war zone. She wore the standard-issue gray linen uniform of the estate’s lower kitchen staff—the scullery maids who scrubbed the cast-iron pots and cleaned the cellar floors long before the sun rose. Her dark brown hair was escaping a haphazard bun, and her knuckles were raw and red from harsh chemical soaps.
When her eyes met Lorenzo’s amber gaze, her entire body seized in terror. She dropped to her knees on the damp moss, her hands clasped together in a desperate, silent plea.
“Please,” she choked out, her voice barely a ragged whisper. “Please, Don Vance. He didn't know. He’s only four. I turned my back for two seconds by the kitchen gardens, and he chased a butterfly through the hedge. Please don't hurt him. Take my life instead, just let my boy go.”
Lorenzo did not move. He kept his arm wrapped securely around the little boy, who was now staring curiously at his mother’s frantic display.
“You think I kill children?” Lorenzo asked, his tone colder than the Lake Geneva ice. He rose slowly to his feet, effortlessly lifting the four-year-old into his left arm. The boy naturally wrapped his arms around Lorenzo’s neck, unafraid of the height or the monster holding him.
“I... I know who you are, sir,” the woman stammered, keeping her head bowed to the dirt, unable to meet his eyes. “I know the rules of the compound. Nobody crosses the southern boundary without authorization. I’m sorry. I swear on my life, we’ll leave today. We’ll never come back.”
Lorenzo took three deliberate steps toward her. The sheer physical presence of the man forced her to shrink back, but she didn’t run; she positioned her fragile body between Lorenzo and the path back to the house, ready to act as a human shield for her son.
“What is your name?” Lorenzo demanded, looking down at the trembling woman.
“Elena,” she whispered. “Elena Hayes.”
“How long have you been employed in my house, Elena?”
“Three weeks, sir. I was hired for the deep-cleaning crew in the sub-basements.”
Lorenzo’s amber eyes narrowed. His estate protocol was absolute: no staff member was hired without a six-month vetting process conducted personally by Dante Russo’s security team. Especially not staff with undocumented toddlers living on the premises. Someone had bypassed the perimeter checks. Someone with high-level administrative clearance had smuggled this woman and her child directly into the heart of his fortress.
“He called me Matteo,” Lorenzo said softly, watching Elena’s shoulders violently flinch at the sound of the name. “My brother has been dead for five years. Why is your son calling a stranger by a dead man's name?”
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Elena finally looked up. Her eyes, wide and filled with tears, locked onto Lorenzo’s face. For the first time, Lorenzo looked past the dirt and the fear on her features and saw something instantly recognizable—a stubborn, defiant fire that he had only ever seen in one other person.
“He didn't call you Matteo because you’re a stranger, Don Vance,” Elena whispered, her voice breaking beneath the weight of a five-year-old secret. “He called you that... because he has his father’s eyes. And every night before he sleeps, I show him the only photograph I have left of the man who died to keep us alive.”
