Chapter 2 - The Silent Witness
The ambulance and Dr. Rossi arrived within twenty minutes. The spectacle of EMTs in the Rinaldi mansion was something I hoped to never see again. The chaos was carefully managed by Dominic, a man whose presence was as imposing as a mountain and whose silence was just as deep.
As they stabilized Leo and prepared to transport him, Alessio watched from the door, his jaw clenched, his hand never straying far from the weapon now tucked into his waistband. I stayed in the nursery, my hands still shaking, my mind racing through the tactical implications of the night.
"You're coming with us," Alessio said to me as the EMTs moved the stretcher out.
"I'm staying here," I countered. "Someone needs to secure the evidence. If you leave this room unattended, whoever did this will scrub the site."
Alessio looked at his guards, then at me. "Dominic. Stay with her. No one comes into this room. Not even me, until I get back."
"Understood, Boss."
As the house emptied of the medical team, the silence returned, heavier than before. Dominic stood by the door, a silhouette of loyalty and iron. I moved back to the nursery, closing the door and setting up a makeshift lab on the changing table. I needed to know more about the bead.
I took out the blue enamel object. Under the magnification of the nursery's high-tech baby monitor optics—which I had repurposed for a better view—I could see the black residue more clearly. It wasn't dust. It was oil. Specifically, high-grade gun oil.
"Dominic," I called out.
He stepped inside, his expression neutral. "Yes?"
"Does anyone else in this house use gun oil?"
"Everyone," he said. "Except for you."
"Think harder," I said. "Who cleans their weapons in the house? Who handles the equipment besides the security detail?"
He paused, his eyes narrowing. "The housekeeper, Mrs. Gable. She handles the laundry and the cleaning of the weapons-grade storage units."
"Mrs. Gable," I repeated. She had been the one to insist on changing the nursery layout just yesterday. She had been the one to handle the pacifier clips.
"She’s been with the family for twenty years," Dominic said, a warning in his voice.
"Twenty years is a long time to build a resentment," I said. I opened the evidence bag and placed the bead in a small container. "Check the laundry room. Check for the source of these beads. If she’s been hiding them, she’s not doing it in a safe."
Dominic hesitated, then nodded and exited. I was alone again, but for the first time, I felt the walls of the nursery closing in. The camera above the door blinked—green, red, green. Someone was still watching. Not from the server, but from a remote connection I hadn't yet identified.
I looked at the camera and smiled. "I know you're there," I whispered.
The green light went steady. The person on the other end was listening.
May you like
"You missed," I said to the lens.
Suddenly, the nursery lights flickered and died. The emergency back-up power kicked in, bathing the room in a sickly, dim red light. My heart jumped. This wasn't a malfunction. This was a shutdown. And as the locks on the nursery door clicked, I realized that I wasn't just investigating a crime—I was trapped in a room with a hunter who had just locked the cage.
