Chapter 1 - The Car Bernadette Couldn’t Take
Theo held the little red car with both hands.
It was one of the finest models in the private showroom—a hand-finished miniature with polished wheels, tiny cream seats, and a narrow silver stripe along the doors. But unlike the collector pieces behind glass, this one belonged to him.
His uncle Adrian had given it to him two years earlier.
Theo was standing beside the massive city-and-racetrack diorama when Bernadette crossed the polished dark floor toward him.
Her son Elliot followed several steps behind.
Bernadette looked first at the red car.
Then at where Theo had placed it moments earlier on the model track.
Something sharpened in her face.
Without warning, she snatched the car from Theo’s hands.
Theo froze.
Bernadette immediately handed it to Elliot.
Elliot accepted it uncertainly.
Theo reached toward him.
“GIVE IT BACK. IT’S MINE.”
Bernadette slapped Theo’s hand aside.
Not hard enough to injure him, but sharply enough to frighten him.
“You don’t deserve it.”
Theo pulled his hand against his chest.
That was when Luciano appeared in the nearby doorway.
He had heard Theo’s voice.
Now he saw his six-year-old son standing pale beside the diorama while Bernadette’s son held the red car that had belonged to Theo only seconds earlier.
Luciano walked straight toward them.
“Why did you take my son’s toy?”
Bernadette opened her mouth.
Marcus moved first.
He stepped into Luciano’s path and shoved him hard.
“This is my house.”
Luciano barely moved.
Marcus swung.
Luciano slipped sideways, avoiding the punch, and answered once.
His right fist struck Marcus across the face.
WHACK!
Marcus stumbled backward and crashed into the edge of the large display model.
He caught himself for half a second.
Then rage overcame judgment.
Marcus lunged again.
Luciano planted his feet and drove one powerful straight kick into Marcus’s upper body.
WHACK!
Marcus flew backward onto the large model table.
CRASH!
The lightweight display structure collapsed beneath him. Miniature buildings, track barriers, streetlamps, and landscaped sections scattered over his body as he landed among the wreckage.
Elliot jumped at the sound.
The red toy car slipped from his hands.
It struck the polished floor but stayed intact.
Luciano calmly bent and picked it up.
He held it in one hand.
Then looked directly at Bernadette.
“I know what you and he are plotting.”
All color vanished from her face.
Marcus remained amidst the broken model pieces.
Theo moved closer to his father.
Bernadette said nothing.
But Luciano noticed what she was staring at.
Not Marcus.
Not Elliot.
Not even the red toy car.
She was looking at one specific section of the collapsed diorama.
A narrow service road beside the miniature racetrack.
And at the tiny white gate that had just fallen loose from underneath the model.
Luciano looked down at it.
Then back at Bernadette.
Whatever she and Marcus had been hiding—
May you like
Theo’s red car had led him directly to it.
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