Chapter 4 - The Empty Pink Chair
The next morning, the sun rose over the Romano estate with a crisp, indifferent brightness.
I woke up early, my mind already racing through the logistical fallout of Thomas’s treason, the restructuring of the Pier 42 warehouse crew, and a pending meeting with the city mayor who had been getting too comfortable asking for campaign donations.
I walked down the grand mahogany staircase, my boots clicking rhythmically against the marble steps. Usually, around 8:00 AM, I would hear the faint patter of bare feet running down the corridor, followed by a knock on my study door and a muffled demand for a blueberry muffin.
The hallway was dead silent.
I frowned, pushing open the heavy double doors of my study.
The room was immaculate. The desk was clear. The whiskey glass from the night before had been washed and put away by Clara.
And beside my knee, the pink pastel chair was empty.
No crayons. No coloring book. No Poppy the rabbit sitting on the cushion.
A strange, cold sensation crawled up the back of my neck—a sensation I hadn't felt since the night I took a bullet in the alley. It wasn't fear; it was something far more dangerous. It was panic.
I strode out of the study and headed straight for the grand kitchen.
Clara was standing by the marble island, scrubbing a large stockpot. Her back was to me, her shoulders rigid. The radio was playing softly in the background, but the kitchen felt heavy, suffocatingly quiet.
“Clara,” I said.
She flinched violently, dropping the sponge back into the sink with a wet slap. She turned around slowly, her face drained of all color, her eyes red-rimmed and swollen as if she had been crying all night.
“Mr. Romano,” she whispered, her voice trembling so badly she could barely form the syllables.
“Where is Lily?” I asked, keeping my tone even, though my pulse was hammering in my ears.
Clara stared at me, her lower lip quivering. She opened her mouth, but no words came out. Instead, a fresh tear spilled over her eyelashes, tracking down her pale cheek.
“I asked you a question, Clara. Where is the child?”
“I—I don't know, sir,” Clara choked out, her hands flying to her mouth to stifle a sob. “I went into her room at seven o’clock. Her bed was made. Her clothes were folded on the chair. But... but she wasn't there. I thought she came up here to see you!”
My blood ran cold.
“Lock down the estate,” I barked, turning on my heel with military precision. “Nobody leaves. Not a single car, not a single servant, not a single rat in the cellar. Search every room, every closet, every inch of the grounds.”
“Yes, Mr. Romano!” Clara cried, collapsing against the kitchen counter in utter despair.
I didn't wait for her to recover. I sprinted back down the hallway toward the staff quarters, my mind racing through every dark possibility. Had someone taken her? Had a rival syndicate used Thomas’s betrayal to slip past our perimeter and snatch the child to get to me?
If anyone had laid a hand on Lily—if a single drop of her blood had been spilled—I would burn this city to ash, brick by brick, until there was nothing left to govern.
As I reached the rear service entrance near the mudroom, Dominic came running from the courtyard, holding something in his massive, calloused hands. His face was pale, his eyes wide with a mixture of confusion and dread.
“Boss,” Dominic panted, stopping in front of me. “One of the perimeter guards found this on the stone step by the servants’ exit.”
He extended his hands.
Sitting in his palm was a small, gray, battered stuffed rabbit with one long ear hanging by a single thread of blue yarn.
Poppy.
My stomach plummeted into an abyss so deep I thought I would suffocate.
Beside the rabbit lay a scrap of lined notebook paper, torn hastily from a child’s drawing pad.
I reached out with a hand that was suddenly shaking—me, Alessandro Romano, whose hands had never trembled in a shootout—and picked up the paper.
May you like
The handwriting was uneven, shaky, written in thick, clumsy crayon strokes by a hand that barely knew how to hold a pen.
“I go away now so Mommy can stay. Bye Mister Alessandro.”
