The grand hall went completely silent the moment I carried her little girl through the front doors.
My Doberman walked at my side like a shadow.
Every head turned.
Two security men stood by the staircase, holding a woman between them.
Her uniform was wrinkled. Her face was pale. Tears clung to her lashes.
She was trembling so hard she could barely stand.
The child in my arms suddenly reached out.
“Mommy!”
The woman looked up.
And the moment her eyes met mine, she stopped breathing.
Then she whispered a name no one in that house had dared to use in over a decade.
“Lorenzo.”
My entire body went rigid.
My staff calls me Mr. Duca.
My enemies call me far worse.
Only people from my old life — from before the blood — ever called me Lorenzo.
“Let her go,” I ordered.
The guards released her instantly.
Before she could even move, Renata stepped forward.
Renata, my head housekeeper. The woman who runs my mansion with an iron fist.
“Sir, she stole the jeweled clock,” she said quickly. “We found it inside her locker. She has been lying to everyone.”
The maid lowered her head.
She didn’t argue. She didn’t defend herself.
But her daughter twisted in my arms and screamed through tears.
“She didn’t do it! Renata put it there!”
For a single second, Renata’s perfect mask cracked.
Just one second.
But I’ve spent years reading fear and guilt in men who thought they could lie to me.
Renata wasn’t just nervous about being caught.
She was terrified.
