Chapter 2 – THE DOORS ARE LOCKED FROM THE OUTSIDE

Heavy, rhythmic pounding echoed against the mansion’s front doors.

The dinner guests erupted into pure panic. Women in expensive gowns screamed, rushing toward the rear exits. Men shoved each other, abandoning the elegant table we had spent hours preparing.

“Lock the house!” Luca roared over the chaos.

His guards, stationed at the corners of the room, immediately moved. But as the head of security reached the main double doors, he pulled desperately at the handles.

“Sir!” the guard shouted, his face pale. “They’re barred. From the outside.”

Vanessa stood perfectly still amidst the stampede, tracing the engraving on the stolen silver watch. “I gave the kitchen staff the night off, Luca. Except for Emily, of course. I needed someone to take the fall for the necklace so the police would be called. A domestic dispute. A distraction.”

My blood ran cold.

She had planned everything. The missing necklace, the accusation, the public humiliation. It was never about me. It was a calculated performance to keep Luca distracted in the dining room while her accomplices locked us in.

“You won’t get out of this,” Luca said, stepping toward her. “You think a locked door stops me?”

“No,” Vanessa smiled. “But fire does.”

Thick, dark smoke began billowing under the grand oak doors of the dining room. The smell of gasoline filled the air.

Sofia pulled me back, coughing as the smoke hit our lungs. “Luca! The children! We have to get out of here, we have to find them!”

“Get everyone to the wine cellar!” Luca ordered his men. He didn’t run. He walked directly up to Vanessa.

She didn’t flinch. “Sign the territory papers I left in your office, or the kids disappear forever. Your choice, boss.”

Daniel fell to his knees, coughing, completely broken by the realization that he had sold his own children to a woman who had played him. “Vanessa, you promised me…”

“I promised you a way out,” Vanessa sneered. “You were just too stupid to realize you weren’t taking it.”

Luca didn’t yell. He didn’t strike her. Instead, he reached out and took the silver watch from her hand.

“You made one mistake, Vanessa,” Luca whispered.

Vanessa’s smile faltered. “What?”

“You assumed I didn’t know who you really were.”

Luca pressed a hidden button on the side of the antique watch. The face popped open. Inside wasn’t a clock. It was a tiny, folded photograph. He held it up.

I squinted through the smoke. It was a picture of Vanessa, ten years younger, standing next to the rival mafia boss Luca had put in prison.

“Did you really think I’d marry the daughter of my greatest enemy without having a backup plan?” Luca asked softly.

Vanessa’s eyes widened in sheer terror.

Suddenly, a massive crash shook the walls. The reinforced glass windows of the dining room shattered inward. But it wasn’t Vanessa’s men breaking in.

It was Luca’s men.

And they were dragging someone inside.

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