Chapter 1 - The Gift Bianca Destroyed
The private music room should have been one of the safest places in the mansion.
It was Nico’s favorite room in the entire house—a quiet, sun-warmed space lined with walnut-paneled walls and stacked instrument cases, where late-afternoon light pooled across the beige carpet and made the brass clasps on the cases glow softly. A collapsible service cart stood near the far wall, still holding a few silver trays from the downstairs party. On the side table sat a bowl of wrapped sweets and an old metronome that had belonged to Nico’s mother.
It was supposed to be where his birthday surprise would wait for him.
Instead, it became the place where Bianca humiliated him.
Nico sat in his black electric wheelchair in the center of the room, his small hands still resting on the blue ribbon of the birthday gift box he had just received. He had barely smiled at it before Bianca swept in, snatched the box out of his lap, and looked down at it with open disgust.
For one second, Nico only stared in confusion.
Then Bianca crushed the gift box in both hands as if it were nothing more than trash.
The sharp crack of folding cardboard echoed through the room.
She hurled the ruined box onto the carpet.
“EVEN TRASH LOOKS BETTER THAN THIS.”
Nico shrank back at once, his face going pale, his shoulders folding inward as though he could make himself smaller inside the chair.
He was only seven. He had learned too early how quickly Bianca’s moods could turn cruel.
Before he could even reach toward the box, Bianca snapped her fingers.
The two bodyguards who shadowed her at every family event rushed in from the hall. Nico looked from one to the other, frightened, still not understanding what she meant to do.
Then they reached him.
They roughly lifted him out of his wheelchair.
Nico gasped as his body left the seat. The movement was abrupt enough to wrench a cry from him before either man let go.
They flung him hard onto the carpet.
He hit the floor, rolled beneath the side table, and instinctively pulled his arms over his head. His wheelchair, released carelessly, jolted sideways and slammed into the table leg.
CRASH.
A crystal dish toppled from the table. A framed photograph and a brass letter opener clattered onto the carpet. The table shook, then steadied.
Nico cowered underneath it, covering his ears with both hands.
Bianca looked down at him with cold, almost bored contempt.
“JUST A LITTLE LESSON.”
Then the door flew open.
Vittorio entered fast, hard, and already tense from the shouting he had heard in the hall.
The moment he saw his son under the table beside the crushed birthday gift, the world narrowed.
Nico looked up at him, eyes wet, cheeks burning with humiliation.
“DAD! SHE RUINED MY GIFT!”
Vittorio’s face changed in an instant.
He didn’t ask questions. He didn’t hesitate. He strode directly toward Bianca and delivered a sharp, decisive open-handed slap across her face.
SLAP.
Bianca staggered backward, one heel skidding on the carpet as she crashed into the collapsible service cart.
The cart toppled over.
Silver trays, tongs, and a glass pitcher scattered across the floor in a metallic burst.
Bodyguard 1 rushed at Vittorio immediately.
Vittorio spun with shocking speed for a man in a dark suit. His fist drove straight into the bodyguard’s chest.
WHACK.
The force sent the man flying backward into the mess of fallen trays near Bianca. He hit the floor hard, stunned and breathless but still conscious.
Bodyguard 2 froze.
He had clearly expected chaos.
He had not expected Vittorio.
For one suspended moment, no one moved.
Then Vittorio dropped to one knee beside the side table.
His voice changed completely when he looked at Nico.
“Hey,” he said softly. “Hey, look at me.”
Nico’s small body was trembling, but when he heard his father, he slowly lowered his hands from his ears. Vittorio reached under the table carefully, helped him sit up, and checked him over with swift, practiced eyes.
No blood. No twisted limb. No impact injury beyond fright.
From the sweet bowl that had spilled near the table leg, Vittorio picked up one small wrapped peppermint and placed it in Nico’s hand.
Nico clutched it tightly.
Then Vittorio turned his head.
He rose slowly to his full height and moved in front of Nico, placing himself between his son and every other adult in the room.
He looked directly at Bianca.
When he spoke, his voice was low enough to be more terrifying than a scream.
“SOMETHING TERRIBLE IS COMING FOR YOU—AND IT WON’T BE LONG NOW.”
Bianca’s face drained of color.
She didn’t look at Vittorio.
She looked toward the doorway.
As if she already knew exactly who he meant.
May you like
And that frightened her more than anything else in the room.
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