Chapter 3 - The Broken Seal|
“Hannah?” Gabriel’s eyes snapped to my face. He noticed the sudden horror in my expression. “What did she say?”
I looked from the terrified nine-year-old girl up to the most dangerous man in Chicago.
“Translate it, Hannah,” Gabriel commanded, stepping closer to me. “Now.”
My throat felt bone-dry. “She... she says the woman at the school told her that you had already signed the enrollment papers. She told Sophie that you were the one who wanted her gone.”
Gabriel shook his head, a look of profound, agonizing betrayal flashing across his dark eyes before he masked it. “I never signed anything. I never even spoke to Westbridge Academy.”
Sophie began sobbing openly now, her shoulders shaking under her lace dress. She signed one more sentence, her small fingers moving with heartbreaking desperation.
“She says,” I whispered, my voice cracking, “that Miss Marconi told the woman you’d be too busy with your new wife to notice Sophie was missing.”
Gabriel turned toward Isabella. The air in the room seemed to contract around them.
Isabella took a step back, her heels clicking sharply against the hardwood floor. “Gabriel, she’s misinterpreting things! She’s hard of hearing, she doesn’t understand complex adult conversations!”
“She understands everything,” I snapped, unable to keep quiet any longer. “She understands that you’ve been cruel to her for three months!”
“Shut up, you pathetic servant!” Isabella snarled, turning her fury on me. “You’re a waitress! You don't belong in this conversation!”
“Enough!” Gabriel’s voice echoed like a thunderclap across the vaulted ceiling.
Sophie reached into her purple purse one last time. Her small hand emerged holding a heavy, tarnished silver key attached to a faded velvet ribbon.
Gabriel froze the moment his eyes hit the silver metal.
I knew that key. Every worker in the house knew about the master suite's hidden mahogany armoire—the locked drawer that contained the personal estate records, private journals, and remaining assets of Elena DeLuca. The drawer nobody had been permitted to open since the night Elena died four years ago.
“Sweetheart...” Gabriel whispered, his voice suddenly fragile. “Where did you get that?”
Sophie looked directly at Isabella, her tiny chin trembling as she signed her final words to her father.
She took Mommy's papers from the desk. The Thursday lady said they're worth more than me.
Gabriel’s eyes locked onto Isabella like two barrels of a loaded shotgun.
“Daniel,” Gabriel called out quietly as his head of security entered the ballroom flanked by four broad-shouldered men in dark suits.
May you like
“Yes, Mr. DeLuca?” Daniel asked, stepping forward.
“Lock the doors,” Gabriel said, taking the silver key from his daughter’s hand. “Nobody leaves this estate. And escort Miss Marconi to my study.”
