Chapter 5 - The Defiance
Medium close-up: The heavy, suffocating silence in the grand luxury dining room was absolutely palpable. Dozens of formally dressed guests held their breath, completely terrified by the sudden, intense domestic standoff unfolding at the head of the long white table.
Valeria glared down at the young woman in the classic black-and-white maid's uniform, her dark burgundy silk dress rustling aggressively. She fully expected the lowly servant to burst into tears, apologize frantically, and immediately wheel the old woman back up to her dark, isolated bedroom.
But Sophia did not run away.
She looked incredibly anxious, her heart hammering violently against her ribs as she stood in front of the city's most powerful, dangerous criminals. But her hands remained firmly, tightly wrapped around the rubberized handles of the medical wheelchair. She absolutely refused to abandon the frail woman sitting in the dark blue sequined dress. She had promised to deliver the queen to her son.
"I'm sorry, ma'am," Sophia said. Her voice was hesitant and trembling slightly under the immense, terrifying pressure of the room, but her words rang perfectly clear through the silent mansion. "Mrs. Moretti asked to see Luca."
The entire room completely froze.
The wealthy guests exchanged bewildered, deeply shocked glances. The idea that the completely catatonic, supposedly brain-dead old woman had formed a coherent sentence was entirely impossible to them. They had all been told repeatedly by Valeria that the matriarch was essentially a mindless vegetable incapable of basic human thought.
Valeria’s perfectly contoured face twisted into a mask of pure, unadulterated, and deeply aggressive mockery. She genuinely believed the young maid was completely losing her mind or trying to pull a pathetic, desperate stunt to extort money from the family.
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She was about to make a completely fatal miscalculation.
👉 Read Part 6 to witness the Madam's arrogant, fatal mistake.
