Chapter 1 – THE MAN STANDING IN THE DRIVEWAY

Luca didn’t hesitate.

He didn’t listen to Bianca’s threat.

He stepped past his fiancée, reached for the heavy brass handle of the front door, and pulled it open.

The cold Chicago wind swept into the foyer.

Standing on the front steps, beneath the glow of the porch light, was a man in a dark trench coat.

He was in his late fifties. Gray hair. A scar cutting across his left cheek.

He didn’t look like a school representative.

He looked like a man who destroyed things for a living.

Thirty of the dinner guests had crowded into the hallway, murmuring in panicked whispers.

“Who are you?” Luca demanded.

His voice was dangerously calm. The kind of calm that preceded violence.

The stranger didn’t look at Luca.

He looked directly at Bianca.

“I told you nine o’clock, Bianca,” the man said. “You were supposed to have the child ready.”

Luca turned to his fiancée.

Bianca was trembling so violently that her red dress shook.

“I tried, Victor,” she stammered. “But the maid ruined it. She brought the cake downstairs—”

“Shut up,” Luca snapped.

He stepped between Bianca and the man named Victor.

“You’re trespassing on my property,” Luca said. “And you’re speaking about my daughter. I’m going to give you three seconds to explain who you are before my men carry you out of here.”

Victor finally looked at Luca.

He didn’t flinch.

“My name is Victor Vance,” he said simply.

A collective gasp echoed from the older guests in the hallway.

Even I knew that name.

Victor Vance wasn’t just a criminal. He was the city’s most notorious debt collector. A ghost who only appeared when someone owed a price they couldn’t pay with money.

“What business do you have with my family?” Luca asked, his fists clenching.

“Not your family,” Victor replied. “Hers.”

He pointed a gloved finger at Bianca.

Answer One: Bianca was the one in trouble, not Isabella.

“Bianca owes my employers a very large sum of money,” Victor explained, his voice smooth and devoid of emotion. “Two million dollars, to be exact. She borrowed it three years ago to fund her lifestyle before she met you.”

Bianca covered her face with her hands.

“It was a mistake,” she sobbed.

“But Bianca couldn’t pay,” Victor continued, ignoring her. “So, she offered us a trade.”

Luca’s expression darkened. “What kind of trade?”

“Leverage,” Victor said. “She promised to deliver your daughter to us tonight. She said if we held Isabella, you would gladly pay Bianca’s debt, plus a heavy premium, to get the child back.”

My blood ran cold.

She was going to let them kidnap Isabella.

She had packed the little girl’s suitcase and told her it was boarding school, just to hand her over to monsters.

Luca turned toward Bianca.

The look in his eyes wasn’t just anger. It was complete, absolute disgust.

“Luca, please!” Bianca begged, dropping to her knees. “They were going to kill me! I had no choice!”

“You were going to sacrifice my ten-year-old daughter to save yourself,” he whispered.

“She’s not even yours!” Bianca screamed, her facade completely shattering. “She’s just a brat left behind by a wife who didn’t even want you!”

The foyer went dead silent.

Isabella squeezed my hand, burying her face against my apron.

Luca didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t have to.

“Take her to the basement,” he ordered his guards.

Two massive men grabbed Bianca by the arms, dragging her away as she kicked and screamed.

Luca turned back to Victor.

“My fiancée is no longer my problem. You can have her tomorrow. But you will never come near my daughter again.”

But Victor didn’t leave.

He reached into his pocket.

Open Two: If Bianca was the target, why was Victor still standing there?

“I didn’t just come for Bianca’s debt, Mr. Moretti,” Victor said.

“Then what do you want?”

Victor pulled out a small, silver pocket watch.

It was heavily tarnished, attached to a broken chain.

I felt Isabella stiffen beside me.

“That’s Mommy’s,” she whispered.

Luca stared at the watch. “Where did you get that?”

“Your wife gave it to me,” Victor said. “The night before she died.”

Reversal: Clara hadn’t been hiding from Victor. She had been working with him.

“Clara paid me to find something,” Victor explained, stepping out of the rain and into the doorway. “Something she hid in this house before she passed away. She told me if anything ever happened to her, I was to come and collect it.”

“Collect what?” Luca asked, his voice cracking for the first time.

Victor didn’t look at Luca.

He looked past him.

Through the crowd of wealthy guests.

Directly at me.

“I came to collect the girl who makes the cakes,” Victor said.

Everyone turned to stare at me.

I froze, my heart hammering against my ribs.

“Me?” I managed to whisper.

Victor nodded.

He opened the silver pocket watch.

Inside the lid, there wasn’t a clock face.

There was a photograph.

It was a picture of me, taken ten years ago, standing next to Luca’s dead wife.

TITLE: The Secret Inside The Rabbit

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