Chapter 2 - THE HOUSE FULL OF ENEMIES
Emma expected Roman DeLuca’s mansion to feel like a palace.
Instead, it felt like a fortress pretending to be a home.
The front hall stretched beneath a crystal chandelier larger than Emma’s bakery kitchen. Marble floors reflected gold light. Oil paintings lined the walls. A staircase curved upward toward a second floor guarded by two men in dark suits.
Yet the expensive beauty could not hide the cameras.
Or the reinforced windows.
Or the men positioned near every entrance.
Roman carried Sophie upstairs himself.
Emma followed, still wearing her flour-dusted black pants and bakery shoes.
A woman in a navy dress hurried toward them.
“Mr. DeLuca.”
She looked approximately sixty, silver-haired, elegant, alarmed.
“Oh, thank God.”
Roman’s voice softened.
“Rosa.”
The woman touched Sophie’s hair.
“Is she hurt?”
“No.”
“Doctor?”
“On the way.”
Rosa noticed Emma.
Her gaze paused.
Not judgmental.
Curious.
“This is Emma Brooks,” Roman said. “She helped Sophie.”
Rosa’s expression transformed.
She took Emma’s hands.
“Then you have my gratitude.”
“Anyone would’ve helped.”
Rosa glanced toward Roman.
“No. Apparently they wouldn’t.”
Emma followed her gaze.
Roman looked tired now.
Not physically.
Something deeper.
A man carrying too many disasters without permission to put any of them down.
Rosa guided them into Sophie’s bedroom.
Emma nearly stopped.
It was not a princess room.
No pink canopy.
No glittering furniture.
Instead, one wall had been painted like a night sky. Tiny lights formed constellations across the ceiling. Shelves held books, puzzles, art supplies, model animals, and dozens of stuffed rabbits.
A framed photograph stood beside the bed.
Roman.
A woman with dark auburn hair.
Baby Sophie between them.
Emma knew immediately.
Sophie’s mother.
Roman saw where she was looking.
“Elena.”
“She was beautiful.”
“Yes.”
Nothing more.
But the word carried enough grief to fill the room.
Sophie woke when Roman placed her on the bed.
She immediately reached for Emma.
Stay.
Emma sat beside her.
Roman said nothing.
A physician arrived ten minutes later.
Dr. Samuel Abrams was older, calm, and clearly accustomed to Roman’s world. He examined Sophie carefully while explaining everything through Roman and Emma’s signs.
No concussion.
No fractures.
Only bruising along one shoulder from the seat belt.
Roman’s face darkened when he saw it.
The doctor noticed.
“She’s fortunate.”
Roman answered quietly.
“Fortunate children don’t get chased through Manhattan.”
“No,” Dr. Abrams said. “But fortunate children survive.”
After he left, Rosa brought Sophie soup.
Sophie refused.
Roman attempted stern fatherhood.
Three spoonfuls.
Sophie crossed her arms.
Roman signed again.
Three.
Two.
Three.
Two and cookie.
Roman stared at her.
Emma looked away, hiding a smile.
Roman turned.
“You’re encouraging this.”
“I haven’t moved.”
“You’re smiling.”
“That’s not illegal.”
“In this house, I’m reconsidering.”
Sophie signed.
Two and cookie.
Roman sighed.
“Fine.”
Emma laughed.
He looked offended.
“You negotiate with international criminals?”
“Yes.”
“And lost to a seven-year-old over soup?”
Roman pointed toward Sophie.
“She cheats.”
Sophie smiled proudly.
For a brief moment, the house felt normal.
Then Marco appeared in the doorway.
“Boss.”
Roman’s expression changed instantly.
“Stay with her,” he told Emma.
It was not a request.
Emma almost objected.
Then she noticed Marco’s face.
“Go,” she said.
Roman disappeared with him.
Sophie watched the doorway.
Her hands moved.
Papa always leaves when people whisper.
Emma hesitated.
“Maybe he doesn’t want you worried.”
It does not work.
“That sounds like parents.”
Do you have children?
Emma shook her head.
Sophie studied her.
Why?
Emma laughed softly.
“That’s a large question.”
The girl waited.
Emma sighed.
“I was engaged once.”
Sophie’s eyes widened with immediate interest.
You stopped?
“He stopped.”
Why?
Children asked questions adults had learned not to.
Emma looked at her hands.
“He decided I didn’t fit the life he wanted.”
Too big?
Emma’s head snapped up.
Sophie immediately looked guilty.
Emma stared at the child.
“Why would you ask that?”
A girl at school said bigger women cannot wear wedding dresses because nobody wants to marry them.
Emma felt an old wound open.
Not because Sophie meant harm.
Because children repeated cruelty they had been taught.
Emma signed carefully.
That girl is wrong.
Sophie studied her.
Emma continued.
Bodies are bodies. Some are tall. Some short. Some thin. Some soft. Some use wheelchairs. Some hear. Some do not. None of those things decide whether someone deserves love.
Sophie touched Emma’s arm.
I think you would look pretty in a wedding dress.
Emma smiled despite herself.
“Thank you.”
Then Sophie added:
Maybe Papa has one.
Emma nearly fell off the bed.
Roman chose that exact moment to return.
He looked between them.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Sophie looked angelic.
Roman did not believe either of them.
Marco entered behind him.
“We need to talk.”
Roman glanced at Sophie.
Emma understood.
“I’ll stay.”
Roman nodded.
“Rosa will bring you a room.”
“I can sleep on the couch.”
“No.”
“I’ve slept on worse.”
“I have forty-two bedrooms.”
Emma stared.
“That is morally offensive.”
Roman almost smiled.
Then Marco whispered something.
Roman’s expression vanished.
He left.
Sophie stared after him.
Emma wondered whether fear was the child’s most familiar language after all.
An hour later, Sophie finally slept.
Emma stepped into the hallway.
Rosa waited.
“This way.”
She led Emma through another corridor to a guest suite larger than Emma’s entire apartment.
Emma stopped in the doorway.
“Absolutely not.”
Rosa smiled.
“You object to pillows?”
“There are twelve.”
“Mr. DeLuca’s late wife believed guests should be comfortable.”
Emma’s humor faded.
“You knew her?”
“Since she was nineteen.”
“What happened?”
Rosa’s eyes lowered.
“Car accident.”
Emma glanced toward Sophie’s room.
“And Sophie?”
“In the car.”
Emma’s stomach tightened.
“She survived?”
“Barely.”
Rosa’s voice became quieter.
“She lost her hearing after the trauma.”
Emma closed her eyes.
“That’s why Roman signs.”
“He learned before Sophie came home from the hospital.”
“He’s good.”
“He practiced six hours a day.”
Emma looked down the hall.
Rosa smiled sadly.
“People know many things about Roman DeLuca. They know which businesses belong to him. Which politicians fear him. Which men disappeared after betraying him.”
She paused.
“They know almost nothing about the father.”
Emma leaned against the doorway.
“I’m not sure whether that makes him better or worse.”
“Neither.”
Rosa’s eyes met hers.
“It makes him human.”
Before Emma could answer, a crash sounded downstairs.
Then shouting.
Rosa stiffened.
A gunshot cracked through the mansion.
Emma’s heart slammed.
“Sophie.”
She ran.
Rosa called after her, but Emma was already moving.
She reached Sophie’s room.
The child sat upright, terrified.
Emma rushed inside and locked the door.
Another gunshot.
Closer.
Sophie signed frantically.
Papa?
“I don’t know.”
Emma grabbed her phone.
No signal.
Of course.
She scanned the room.
Windows.
Closet.
Bathroom.
Too obvious.
Then she noticed an old service door behind a decorative shelf.
She opened it.
Narrow corridor.
Probably servants’ access from decades earlier.
“Come on.”
Sophie slid from bed.
Emma held her hand.
They entered the corridor.
Darkness swallowed them.
Emma closed the door behind them.
Sophie trembled.
Emma signed using one hand.
Stay close.
Footsteps thundered outside the bedroom.
A man shouted.
“Check every room!”
Emma froze.
Not Roman’s men.
She pulled Sophie deeper into the passage.
The corridor smelled like dust and cedar.
They moved carefully.
Sophie suddenly tugged Emma’s sleeve.
Wait.
She pointed downward.
Light came through a vent.
Voices below.
Emma crouched.
Two men stood in what appeared to be a library.
One wore a black jacket.
The other wore a security uniform.
Roman’s security uniform.
Emma’s blood chilled.
The uniformed man spoke first.
“She’s supposed to be upstairs.”
“The DeLuca woman?”
“The kid.”
“And the baker?”
A pause.
Emma stopped breathing.
“Kill her if necessary.”
Sophie’s fingers tightened around Emma’s.
The man continued.
“The girl leaves alive.”
Emma slowly raised her phone.
No signal.
But camera worked.
She recorded through the vent.
The second man paced.
“Where’s Roman?”
“South wing. Marco pulled him away.”
“So inside man did his job.”
Emma’s heart pounded.
Inside man.
Not just someone with information.
Someone inside Roman’s security structure was actively helping them.
The first man cursed.
“We have four minutes.”
Emma shifted her weight.
The old floorboard beneath her foot creaked.
Both men went silent.
Emma froze.
“Did you hear that?”
Sophie stared at her.
The security man looked upward.
Emma grabbed Sophie.
“Run.”
They moved.
A door slammed below.
Boots hit stairs.
The passage twisted left.
Dead end.
Emma panicked.
Then Sophie pointed toward a narrow ladder.
They climbed.
Emma pushed Sophie upward.
The ladder opened into an attic.
Emma pulled herself through and closed the panel.
Seconds later, footsteps entered the passage below.
Sophie’s breathing became rapid.
Emma held her face gently.
Look at me.
Sophie did.
Breathe with me.
Emma exaggerated slow breaths.
Sophie copied.
Below them, someone climbed.
Emma looked around.
Old furniture.
Boxes.
A heavy iron fireplace tool.
She grabbed it.
The trapdoor moved.
Emma raised the tool.
The panel opened.
A man’s head appeared.
Emma swung.
He shouted.
The tool struck his shoulder.
He fell backward.
Emma slammed the panel shut and dragged a trunk over it.
“Go!”
They ran across the attic.
A window opened onto a sloped roof.
Impossible.
Then Emma saw another door.
She pushed it.
Locked.
“Damn.”
Sophie tugged her arm.
Key.
A hook beside the frame.
Emma grabbed it.
Unlocked the door.
They rushed into another corridor.
Suddenly armed men appeared ahead.
Emma lifted the fireplace tool.
“Emma!”
Roman.
She nearly collapsed.
He ran toward them.
Sophie sprinted into his arms.
Roman caught her.
Marco and six guards moved past Emma toward the attic.
Roman’s eyes swept over his daughter.
“Hurt?”
Sophie shook her head.
Then pointed at Emma.
She saved me.
Roman looked at the iron tool in Emma’s hand.
“You hit someone?”
“Possibly.”
“Possibly?”
“He moved.”
Against all reason, Roman laughed once.
A short, stunned sound.
Then Marco shouted from the attic.
“We’ve got one!”
Roman turned.
Emma remembered the recording.
“Wait.”
She pulled out her phone.
“I heard them talking downstairs.”
Roman’s expression sharpened.
“What did they say?”
“Your security team has a traitor.”
He stared.
Emma played the recording.
The words filled the corridor.
So inside man did his job.
Roman’s face became colder with every second.
Marco returned, dragging a bleeding intruder in handcuffs.
“Second guy escaped.”
Emma pointed.
“The other one was wearing your uniform.”
Marco cursed.
Roman handed Sophie to Rosa, who had arrived sobbing.
Then he stepped toward the captured man.
“Who opened my house to you?”
The intruder smiled through a split lip.
Roman’s voice lowered.
“Tell me.”
The man laughed.
“You still don’t understand.”
Roman stopped.
The intruder looked past him.
Straight at Sophie.
“This isn’t about your territory.”
Roman’s eyes narrowed.
“What is it about?”
The man smiled.
“It’s about what Elena saw before she died.”
Silence.
Roman went completely motionless.
Rosa covered her mouth.
Marco whispered, “Jesus Christ.”
Emma looked from one face to another.
“Who is Elena?”
Roman did not answer.
Sophie did.
Her hands trembled.
My mother.
May you like
The captured man laughed again.
And Roman DeLuca looked as though someone had just resurrected the dead.
