Chapter 1 - The Midnight Kitchen
The pancake batter was a lumpy, chaotic disaster, but to seven-year-old Lucia, it might as well have been gold.
Victor Romano, a man whose mere signature could freeze port operations across the Eastern Seaboard, stood in his tailored Brioni shirt with the sleeves rolled up, carefully flipping a slightly charred pancake. Lucia sat on the marble countertop, swinging her legs, a dab of flour on her nose.
“It’s too dark on the edges,” she pointed out clinically.
“It builds character,” Victor replied, sliding the uneven circle onto a bone-china plate. He handed her a bottle of premium maple syrup. “Eat.”
Lucia didn’t hesitate this time. She devoured the food with a desperate, heartbreaking speed. Victor leaned against the island, watching her. His mind was a tempest. He employed over two hundred people. He paid them well. But clearly, he had been blind to the shadows of his own house.
Suddenly, the kitchen doors burst open.
Sofia Vargas stood there, her face devoid of color. She was wearing a faded flannel nightgown, her chest heaving as she struggled for breath. Her eyes darted from Victor to Lucia, and sheer terror took over.
“Mr. Romano—I swear, I didn’t know she left the room!” Sofia dropped to her knees on the cold tile, her hands clasped together. “Please. I beg you. Don’t hurt her. I’ll pack our things. We’ll be gone in five minutes.”
Victor’s heart twisted. He walked around the island, ignoring the protocol that dictated a boss never stooped for the help. He grabbed Sofia by the shoulders and hauled her gently to her feet.
“Sofia. Breathe,” he commanded, his voice rumbling with an unfamiliar softness. “Nobody is fired. Nobody is hurt. Your daughter was hungry.”
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“I’m sorry,” she sobbed, a violent cough rattling her fragile frame. “I try to feed her, I try—”
“I know,” Victor interrupted. He guided her to a barstool next to Lucia, who had stopped eating to hold her mother’s hand. Victor poured a glass of water and set it in front of Sofia. “But starting tonight, things change. You are going to tell me exactly why a woman working full-time in my house is starving to death.”
