Chapter 2: The Man with the Gun
The elevator climbed to the third floor in complete silence.
Lorenzo Rossi stood inside alone, his pistol hanging at his side. His knuckles were streaked with dried blood from the crystal glass he had crushed earlier that morning.
The security monitor had shown only one image before the feed froze.
A maid.
Holding his son.
Nothing else mattered.
The elevator doors slid open.
Six armed guards fell in behind him without a word.
No one dared ask questions.
Lorenzo reached the nursery and kicked the door open so hard it slammed against the wall.
"Don't move."
Hunter looked up, frozen in the rocking chair.
Leo was still nestled against her chest.
The room fell silent except for the baby's soft swallowing.
Lorenzo raised the pistol.
Its black barrel pointed directly at Hunter's forehead.
"Who sent you?" he asked, his voice calm enough to terrify everyone present.
Hunter couldn't answer.
She was too afraid to breathe.
"I... I wasn't trying to hurt him."
"No?" Lorenzo took one slow step closer. "Then explain why you're holding my son."
Tears spilled down Hunter's face.
"He was starving."
"My doctors were feeding him."
"He wasn't eating."
"My nurses were caring for him."
"They weren't awake."
For the first time, Lorenzo noticed the nurse slumped in the leather chair.
The half-empty wineglass.
The untouched bottle of formula.
The feeding tube lying disconnected beside the crib.
His jaw tightened.
Still, the gun never moved.
"You expect me to believe," he said quietly, "that you ignored every rule in this house because you felt sorry for my son?"
Hunter lowered her eyes.
"I lost my baby three weeks ago."
The words landed like stones.
"My daughter was stillborn."
Silence.
"My body..." Her voice cracked. "My body didn't know she'd died."
She looked down at Leo.
"I heard him crying."
"I tried to walk away."
"I couldn't."
Lorenzo stared at her.
His eyes shifted to Leo.
For fourteen endless days, every feeding had ended the same way.
Crying.
Vomiting.
Machines screaming.
Doctors whispering.
Today...
His son was peaceful.
Leo's tiny fingers had wrapped themselves around Hunter's thumb.
His breathing was slow.
His color looked warmer than it had in weeks.
Then something happened that no one in the room expected.
Leo finished swallowing.
Instead of crying, he gave a tiny sigh.
And fell asleep.
The heart monitor settled into the strongest rhythm Lorenzo had heard since his son was born.
One of the guards looked at the screen.
"Boss..."
His voice trembled.
"The baby's oxygen is rising."
Another guard stepped toward the monitor.
"Heart rate is stabilizing."
Even the sleeping nurse woke with a start.
She stared at the monitor.
Then at Hunter.
Then at Leo.
Her face turned completely white.
Lorenzo slowly lowered the pistol.
Not because he trusted the maid.
But because, for the first time since Sophia died...
His son looked like he wanted to live.
Lorenzo's eyes remained fixed on Hunter.
"You don't move," he said quietly.
"I'm calling every doctor back to this house."
Outside the nursery, the guards exchanged uneasy glances.
No one noticed the elderly housekeeper standing at the end of the hallway.
She had seen everything.
And unlike everyone else in the Rossi estate...
She recognized Hunter.
May you like
From years ago.
Before tragedy had changed both of their lives.
