Chapter 2 - THE SILVER LOCKET The screen of my phone burned against my palm.
Dad says he knows where I am. Please don’t let him bring me home.
Nico Romano was staring at me. His dark eyes shifted from Bianca’s tear-stained face to the device trembling in my hand. He hadn’t missed the buzz.
“Is that her?” Nico’s voice was dangerously quiet.
I locked the screen and slipped the phone into my apron pocket. “It’s my landlord. Reminding me about the rent that this $4,800 was supposed to cover.”
Bianca flinched. Nico didn’t blink.
“Hannah,” he said, his tone perfectly measured. “You have worked in this house for two years. You know how much I value loyalty.”
“I do, Mr. Romano. Which is why I am asking to be excused. My shift ended twenty minutes ago, and since I am not a thief, I have nothing left to explain.”
I didn’t wait for his permission. I turned my back on the twenty wealthy guests and walked out of the dining room. My legs felt like lead, but I kept my posture straight.
The moment the kitchen doors swung shut behind me, I tore off the white apron.
I grabbed my keys and slipped out the service entrance into the cool night air. My ancient Honda Civic sputtered to life, and I tore out of the estate’s driveway, heading straight for Juniper House.
If Nico knew where Lily was, I had less than an hour.
Juniper House sat at the end of a winding, unlit road. When I pulled up to the iron gates, a black SUV was already idling out front.
Nico’s driver.
My heart hammered against my ribs. I parked a few yards away in the shadows and ran through the wet grass toward the side entrance I’d used three nights ago.
I slipped inside the dimly lit corridor. The psychiatric facility was quiet, but I heard voices near the reception desk.
“Mr. Romano has full legal guardianship,” a man’s voice said. Not Nico. It was Marcus, Nico’s ruthless head of security.
I crept down the hallway toward Lily’s room. Room 12.
The door was cracked open. I pushed it gently.
Lily was huddled on the floor between the bed and the wall, clutching her knees to her chest. When she saw me, a sob ripped from her throat.
“Hannah,” she whispered, launching herself into my arms. She felt so fragile, like a bird with hollow bones.
“I’m here, sweetheart. I’m here.”
“Marcus is outside,” she choked out. “He’s going to take me back. If I go back, I won’t survive it. He’ll make sure of it.”
“Who? Your dad?”
Lily shook her head violently. She reached into the pocket of her oversized cardigan and pulled out a heavy silver locket. It was tarnished, the clasp broken.
She pressed it into my hand.
“Not my dad,” she whispered, her eyes wide with a terror that made my blood run cold. “Look inside.”
I pried the damaged metal open.
Inside wasn't a photograph. It was a tiny, folded piece of thick cardstock. A deposit slip from a Swiss bank.
The name on the account wasn't Nico Romano.
It was Bianca.
And the deposit was for two million dollars, dated the exact day Lily’s mother died in that “accidental” fall down the stairs.
A heavy hand suddenly slammed the bedroom door completely shut, locking us inside.
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“I told you to stay out of family business, Hannah.”
I spun around. Marcus was standing in the shadows of the bathroom frame.
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