Chapter 4 - The Shattered Glass
The morning sun had barely crested the manicured hedges of the estate gardens when the screaming started.
I had spent a sleepless night in my small, third-floor staff room, staring at the ceiling as the anesthesia wore off and the throbbing in my palm settled into a steady, dull ache. By six in the morning, I had already dressed in a clean gray uniform, managing to button my collar with my left hand and teeth.
When I stepped into the grand marble hallway on the second floor, the air was practically vibrating with panic.
"Where is it? Who was in this room yesterday?!"
The voice belonged to Isabella. It was shrill, manic, and echoed off the high vaulted ceilings like a gunshot.
Two maids, Maria and Elena, were standing outside the door of Isabella’s master suite, their faces white as chalk. Mrs. Gable, the severe, fifty-something head housekeeper who rarely showed any emotion, was wringing her hands in front of her crisp black apron.
"Miss Romano, please calm down," Mrs. Gable pleaded, her voice trembling. "Nothing has ever gone missing from this house in my twenty years of service. It must have been misplaced. Did you check your vanity drawers? The travel case?"
"Do not tell me to calm down!" Isabella shrieked.
She stepped into the hallway, wrapped in a pale silk robe, her face scrubbed of makeup but her eyes wild with malice. She spotted me the moment I reached the top of the stairs.
Her lips curved into a sick, triumphant sneer.
"There," Isabella said, pointing a trembling, diamond-encrusted finger straight at my chest. "She was in my room yesterday."
Every head turned toward me.
"What happened?" I asked, my pulse instantly jumping into my throat.
"My mother’s diamond and sapphire collar," Isabella said, her voice dropping into an accusatory hiss. "It was on my dressing table before dinner yesterday. Five carats of Burmese sapphires set in antique platinum. It is worth two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. And it is gone."
"I wasn't in your room yesterday, Miss Romano," I said immediately, keeping my voice level. "I was assigned to the ground-floor library, the dining room, and the downstairs service pantry. I haven't been on the second floor since Tuesday."
"Liar!" Isabella took three rapid strides toward me, her silk robe billowing. "You were cleaning the sconces in the corridor right outside my door at four in the afternoon! I saw you!"
"I was in the pantry at four o'clock," I said, my voice hardening. "You know I was. That was when you broke the glass."
Isabella’s eyes flashed with venom, but she didn't lose her footing. "She is a thief. Look at her! Her mother is rotting in some third-rate nursing home running up thousands of dollars in debt! She's desperate! She knew I was distracted yesterday, so she snuck into my room, took the necklace, and fabricated this whole pathetic story about broken glass to gain Luca’s sympathy!"
Mrs. Gable looked between us, visibly terrified. "Miss Romano, those are very serious allegations..."
"Call the police," Isabella ordered, turning toward the housekeeper. "No, wait. I will search her room myself."
"You will do no such thing."
The voice came from the end of the corridor.
Luca emerged from the shadows near the east staircase. He was already fully dressed for the city in a charcoal three-piece suit, his overcoat folded over his arm. His expression was as unreadable as a slab of granite, but the atmosphere around him seemed to drop ten degrees the moment he entered the hallway.
He walked with slow, deliberate steps toward our cluster, the soles of his polished leather shoes clicking rhythmically against the marble floor.
"What is the meaning of this noise?" Luca asked coldly.
"Luca, thank God," Isabella said, instantly changing her tone. The screeching fury vanished, replaced by an aggrieved, trembling vulnerability that made my stomach turn. She hurried toward him, resting a manicured hand on his forearm. "My sapphire collar. The one my father gave me for my twenty-first birthday. It’s gone. Stolen from my dressing table."
Luca looked down at her hand on his arm until she felt uncomfortable enough to remove it.
"Are you certain it isn't in your safe?" he asked.
"I never put it in the safe yesterday! I took it off before I went down to the library! And Emma was seen lingering near my quarters," Isabella claimed, looking back at me with theatrical sorrow. "I know you have a soft spot for charity cases, Luca, but this girl has motives. Her family is drowning in debt. Ask her yourself! Have security search her room!"
Luca’s gaze drifted past Isabella and landed on me.
I held my ground. My heart was pounding like a trapped bird against my ribs, but I refused to look away. "I did not take your necklace, Miss Romano. Search my room. Search my locker. Search my mother’s home if you want. You won't find it."
"Of course you hid it somewhere outside the grounds!" Isabella snapped. "She probably passed it to an accomplice through the kitchen delivery door!"
"Enough," Luca said.
The word cut through the corridor like a razor.
Luca turned to Charles, who had just appeared at the base of the stairs, looking grim.
"Charles," Luca said. "Where is Frank?"
"Frank is in the security booth, sir," Charles replied.
"Bring him up here. And bring the master keycard to the server room."
Isabella blinked, a flicker of uncertainty crossing her features. "Luca, what do the security servers have to do with this? We need to call the precinct. Detective Miller is a personal friend of my father, he will handle this quietly—"
"No police will step foot inside this estate without my express permission," Luca said, his voice quiet, cold, and final. "This house is equipped with thirty-two high-definition cameras in the corridors alone. There are two cameras covering the entrance to your private suite, Isabella. One at the north archway, and one right above the linen alcove."
Isabella’s breath caught. For a split second, her mask slipped, revealing a flash of sheer, undiluted panic.
"The... the cameras?" she stammered. "Luca, that’s an invasion of privacy! I don't want strangers looking through footage of who enters and exits my private quarters!"
"They aren't strangers," Luca replied, not taking his eyes off her. "They are men paid to keep this house secure. If Emma stepped through your door yesterday, she is on high-resolution, time-stamped digital recording. If she didn't, then we will see who did."
A suffocating silence descended over the corridor.
Within two minutes, Frank, the burly, middle-aged head of estate security, hurried down the hall holding an iPad encased in heavy black rubber. He stopped beside Luca, nodding respectfully.
"Mr. Moretti. I pulled the logs from yesterday between noon and midnight, just as Charles requested."
"Pull up camera fourteen," Luca instructed. "The east wing corridor. Frame the entrance to Miss Romano’s suite between four and seven o'clock."
Frank’s thick fingers tapped the screen. The small cluster of staff—Mrs. Gable, Maria, Elena, and Charles—held their collective breath.
I stood still, my stitched hand throbbing, my eyes fixed on Isabella.
Her face had drained of every drop of color. Her lips were slightly parted, and her hand was clutching the collar of her silk robe so tightly that her knuckles were white.
"Sir," Frank said, angling the iPad toward Luca. "Footage is running. At 4:12 PM, the hallway is empty. At 4:35 PM, the only person who approaches Miss Romano’s door... is Miss Romano herself."
Luca leaned down, his eyes skimming the screen. "Fast-forward to six o'clock."
"Nothing, sir. At 6:15 PM, Miss Romano leaves her room dressed in the red gown for dinner. No one enters after her. The door remains closed until 11:30 PM, when she returns alone."
Luca straightened up.
He didn't look angry. He looked disgusted.
"Emma was never on the second floor yesterday," Luca said, his voice echoing in the dead silence.
Isabella swallowed hard. "Then... then someone must have tampered with the footage! Or perhaps it was taken earlier in the week! I could have sworn—"
"Frank," Luca cut in, his voice dropping into a register that made even the burly security guard stand a little straighter. "Did you search the premises before coming up?"
"Yes, Mr. Moretti," Frank said quietly, reaching into his suit jacket. "Following your standing protocol for reported missing items of high value, we checked the external perimeter and the staff bins first. Then, per your standing order from this morning, we swept the guest suites."
Frank pulled out a heavy, velvet-lined jeweler’s box and opened it.
Resting against the black velvet was a cascade of brilliant diamonds surrounding five massive, deep-blue Burmese sapphires.
The necklace.
A collective gasp went through the staff.
"Where was it, Frank?" Luca asked, though his eyes were locked entirely on Isabella.
"It was tucked inside the false bottom of Miss Romano's makeup trunk," Frank replied evenly. "Wrapped in tissue paper, right beneath her passport."
The silence that followed was terrifying.
Isabella stumbled back a half-step, her back hitting the wallpapered wall. "I... I forgot I packed it! I was organizing my jewelry for our trip to Milan next month, I swear! It was an honest mistake, Luca! I forgot I moved it!"
Luca took two slow, predatory steps toward her.
He didn't raise his voice. He didn't wave his hands. But the sheer menace rolling off him was suffocating.
"You didn't forget, Isabella," Luca said, each word landing like a hammer blow. "You hid an heirloom, publicly accused an innocent woman of grand larceny, and attempted to use the police force to destroy her life—all to settle a petty grudge because she dared to bleed on your watch."
"Luca, please—" Tears, real or fake, began spilling down Isabella’s cheeks.
"Get your things," Luca commanded.
Isabella froze. "What?"
"You are leaving this house today," Luca said. "You will return to your father's estate on Long Island. You will remain there until I decide whether your family's alliance is worth the stench of your behavior."
"You can't do this!" Isabella cried out, despair finally shattering her aristocratic facade. "The press! The contracts between our fathers! The merger! If you send me away, my father will pull his ships from your docks!"
Luca leaned down until his face was inches from hers.
"Tell Victor Romano that if he pulls one single ship from my harbor," Luca whispered with lethal clarity, "I will sink the other twelve before they clear the bay. Now get out of my sight before I have Frank throw you down the front steps."
Isabella choked on a sob, covered her face with her trembling hands, and fled back into her room, slamming the heavy mahogany door so hard the crystal sconces rattled on the walls.
Luca stood in the middle of the hallway. He adjusted the lapels of his suit, completely unbothered by the storm he had just unleashed.
Then he looked at the gathered staff.
"Return to your duties," he said.
Mrs. Gable and the maids scattered like mice, hurrying down the service stairs in frantic silence. Frank gave a curt nod and retreated with the iPad.
Only I remained, frozen at the top of the staircase, staring at the most dangerous man in the city.
Luca walked toward me. He stopped on the step below mine, bringing our eyes almost level.
He reached out and gently lifted my bandaged hand, inspecting the clean white wrap.
"Did she hurt you again?" he asked softly.
"No, sir," I managed to say, my voice barely audible over the roaring in my ears. "Mr. Moretti... you just started a war with the Romano family for me."
Luca’s lips tilted into a faint, dangerous smile that didn't reach his eyes.
"No, Emma," he murmured, his thumb brushing lightly across the edge of the tape on my wrist. "I started a war with the Romanos because they forgot whose city this is. You were just the catalyst."
He released my hand and began walking down the stairs.
"Go to the morning room," he called back over his shoulder. "The registries need cataloging. And don't skip your lunch."
I watched him disappear down the grand marble staircase, my heart pounding so hard it felt like it would crack my ribs.
He had saved me twice in twenty-four hours. But as I looked at the closed door of Isabella’s room, I knew the truth.
The Romano family wouldn't blame Luca for this humiliation.
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They would blame the maid who survived it.
***
