Chapter 2 - TRAPPED IN THE NURSERY
The atmosphere inside the room turned electric and lethal in a microsecond. Lorenzo moved with the terrifying speed of a trained predator. He stepped over the sleeping nurse—who didn't even stir—and raised his gun back toward the wooden door, his body positioning itself as a physical shield between whatever was outside and the two of us behind him.
"Stay behind me," Lorenzo commanded in a low, dangerous rumble that vibrated through the floorboards.
"Lorenzo..." a voice muffled through the heavy oak door. It wasn't a violent grunt; it was soft, refined, and chillingly familiar to him. "You shouldn't have gone upstairs tonight."
Lorenzo’s jaw clenched so hard the muscles jumped. "Julian?"
Julian was Lorenzo’s right-hand man, his trusted consigliere, and the man who managed the estate's security personnel.
"The child was supposed to die quietly in his sleep, Lorenzo," Julian’s voice echoed through the keyhole, completely devoid of emotion. "A tragic loss. A grieving father driven mad by sorrow, stepping down from the Rossi empire to mourn. It was a clean plan. It would have saved us a lot of blood."
I squeezed Leo closer to my chest, my heart pounding against my ribs like a trapped bird. The realization hit me like a splash of ice water. The night nurse wasn't just lazy; she was being paid to sedate the baby or lace his formula with something that nauseated him, ensuring he slowly starved without raising suspicion.
"You poisoned my son," Lorenzo said, his voice dropping to a register so dark it didn't sound human.
"We laced his bottle with a subtle paralytic toxin, yes," Julian admitted casually from the hallway. "Just enough to make his swallowing reflex fail. The doctors thought it was a neurological defect caused by his mother's death. It was brilliant. Until that useless maid stepped into the room."
I held my breath, feeling Lorenzo’s cold eyes flick back toward me for a split second before returning to the door.
"You won't leave this hallway alive, Julian," Lorenzo promised.
"Actually, Lorenzo, you won't leave that room," Julian replied. "The fire alarms have been disabled. The basement fuel tanks have been opened. In five minutes, this entire wing will be engulfed in flames. The headlines tomorrow will say the tragic Rossi patriarch perished in an accidental house fire alongside his sick infant and a hysterical maid."
Footsteps began to recede down the carpeted hallway, followed by the faint scent of diesel fuel creeping under the crack of the nursery door.
Panicked, I looked around the room. The nursery was on the second floor, over fifty feet above the concrete patio below. The windows were reinforced bulletproof glass, locked from the outside perimeter control system.
"He's going to burn us alive," I whispered, tears of terror threatening to spill over.
Lorenzo didn't panic. He holstered his gun, stepped over to the sleeping nurse, and checked her pulse. "She's heavily drugged. She won't survive the smoke."
"What about Leo?!" I demanded, my protective instincts flaring up wildly. "We have to get him out!"
Lorenzo walked over to the heavy wooden door, examined the iron lock mechanism, and pulled a small, concealed silver blade from his boot. "The house was built in 1920. The doors are solid mahogany, but the hinges were retrofitted ten years ago."
He jammed the blade into the upper hinge pin, using his incredible upper-body strength to force the metal rod upward. The scent of smoke began to grow stronger. Smoke started to curl beneath the bottom crack of the door, thin and grey.
"Hold him tight," Lorenzo ordered me, not looking back. "When this door gives, we run. Do you understand me, girl?"
"My name is Clara," I snapped, buttoning my uniform coat over my chest to keep Leo warm and hidden against my warmth.
Lorenzo paused for a fraction of a second, his dark eyes locking onto mine with a fierce intensity. "Hold onto my belt, Clara. If you fall behind in the smoke, I won't turn back for you. I will only turn back for my son."
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"Then don't lose us," I fired back, meeting his deadly gaze without flinching.
With a final, explosive kick, Lorenzo slammed his heavy leather boot directly against the lock plate. The mahogany wood splintered with a sound like a gunshot, and the heavy door burst outward into a corridor already filling with thick, choking black smoke.
