Chapter 2 - The Shadows of the Past
By afternoon, the temporary peace of the morning had evaporated, replaced by the grim reality of the Romano empire. Dominic had departed for his docks in Manhattan, leaving Meline alone in the massive fortress with the children and a security detail large enough to invade a small country.
Meline spent the hours exploring the house, trying to understand the geography of the trauma she had inherited. The walls were bare of family photographs. In the grand salon, a large, rectangular patch of lighter wallpaper showed where a massive portrait had once hung—undoubtedly Camila, the late matriarch. Dominic hadn't just buried his wife; he had attempted to erase her existence from the house, a desperate, flawed attempt to stop his children from bleeding out from the memory.
As she passed the second-floor library, a sharp, crashing sound echoed from within.
Meline pushed the heavy double doors open. The room was dark, the heavy velvet drapes drawn shut to block out the gray afternoon sky. Standing in the center of the room was Luca, a shattered porcelain vase at his feet. In his hand, he held a silver-framed photograph—the only one left in the house, hidden away on a high shelf. It was a picture of a beautiful blonde woman laughing on a beach, holding a toddler Luca in her arms.
"I told you to stay away from us," Luca growled, spinning around to face her, his eyes wild and bloodshot. He quickly hid the photograph behind his back, as if she had the power to steal it from him. "You're trying to figure us out, aren't you? You think if you play nice with the little ones, my dad will love you. You think you can just step into her shoes."
"I don't want her shoes, Luca," Meline said, staying by the door, her hands visible and relaxed. She didn't look at the shattered vase. "I’m a size seven. Your mother looks like she was a nine. They wouldn't fit me anyway."
Luca blinked, his rage momentarily short-circuiting at the sheer absurdity of her response. "This isn't a joke! She died because of him! Because of who he is! And now he brings you here, a Rossi. Do you think I don't know who your father is? Frank Rossi is a rat. Everyone on the streets knows he’s a coward who sells his own blood to pay his debts."
The words cut deep, a cruel, accurate strike that made Meline’s breath catch in her throat. Her father was a coward. He had sold her. But instead of letting the shame tear her apart, she used it to anchor herself to the boy standing before her.
"You're right," Meline said, her voice dropping to a whisper that commanded total attention in the cavernous room. "My father is a monster. He looked at me, his only daughter, and decided I was worth exactly three million dollars because I couldn't give him grandchildren. He threw me away, Luca. Just like someone threw a bomb under your mother’s car."
Luca flinched as if she had struck him.
"So don't look at me and see an enemy," Meline continued, taking one slow, deliberate step into the room. "We have both been broken by the world your father and my father built. I am not your mother. I will never try to be her. But I am the only person in this house who knows exactly what it feels like to have your entire world blown up before your eyes."
Luca stared at her, his chest heaving, his lips trembling as the fragile facade of his twelve-year-old anger began to crack. For a second, just a fraction of a second, he looked like he wanted to drop the photograph and run into her arms. But the walls he had built were too thick, too reinforced by two years of pure survival.
"Just leave me alone," he choked out, turning away from her, his shoulders shaking as he stared at the wall.
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"I'll leave you alone for now," Meline said gently, turning back toward the door. "But the kitchen is making chicken soup for dinner. If you change your mind, your seat is still there."
As she walked down the long, silent corridor back to her suite, a sudden chill washed over her. She knew that winning over Luca was only the first battle. The real danger didn't lie within the walls of this mansion; it was outside, waiting in the dark, where Frank Rossi and Arban Hoxha were realizing that Dominic Romano hadn't just taken a woman—he had taken a piece of their pride.
