Chapter 2 - The Crimson Snow by the Fountain
A blast of sub-zero wind tore through the open service portal, hitting Luca like a barrage of physical blows. The blizzard was howling off the ridge, a whiteout wall of driving sleet and powder that obliterated visibility beyond ten feet. The thermometer mounted beside the steel industrial door read minus twenty-two degrees.
"Ella!" Luca shouted, the fury in his chest expanding into something raw and feral.
His tailored cashmere dinner jacket offered zero defense against the gale, but he didn't feel the bite of the ice. He leapt down the concrete steps of the delivery ramp, his polished leather shoes sinking instantly past his ankles into the fresh, blinding drifts. The world was nothing but screaming wind and swirling gray shadows.
He knew her habits. He knew she feared open spaces when she was frightened. If she had been thrown outside without shoes or a coat, she wouldn't have run toward the main gates—two miles down a winding, exposed mountain road. She would have sought shelter, somewhere with walls to break the wind.
He sprinted toward the east courtyard, fighting through waist-deep snowbanks that clustered around the hedge lines. The decorative stone fountain stood at the center of the terrace, an ornate tier of carved cherubs and frozen cascades, now transformed into an icy monument.
Beside the granite base, half-buried under a fresh drift of white, lay a patch of faded black cotton.
"Ella!"
Luca dropped to his knees, heedless of the ice soaking through his trousers. He clawed frantically at the frozen crust of snow, brushing away heavy layers of frost until he uncovered her face.
His breath caught in his throat.
She was curled tightly into a fetal position, her knees pulled up toward her chest in a desperate, failed effort to trap her body's dwindling heat. Her thin maid’s dress was torn at the collar, exposing pale, bruised skin that was marbled with blue veins. Her eyelashes were frozen shut with delicate crystals of frost. Her lips were a terrible, lifeless shade of violet.
Worst of all were her hands. Her small fingers, raw and bloody from beating against the locked steel doors, were tucked beneath her chin, completely rigid.
"Look at me," Luca commanded, his voice shaking with an emotion he hadn't experienced in over twenty years. "Ella, look at me. Open your eyes!"
He touched her neck. Her skin felt like carved marble. For four agonizing seconds, he found nothing. Then, beneath the cold surface of her throat, he felt it—a thread-thin, fluttering pulse, so faint and irregular that it felt like the heartbeat of a dying sparrow.
"No," Luca growled through clenched teeth. "You do not die in my house. You do not die for them."
He stripped off his heavy wool jacket, wrapping it entirely around her tiny, shivering frame. Lifting her into his arms, he was sickened by how light she felt. She weighed almost nothing, hollowed out by months of anxiety, malnutrition, and fear. Her head rolled back against his shoulder, limp and burning with the fever she had concealed for days beneath her servant’s smile.
As he turned back toward the estate, he spotted a glint of metal on the concrete steps near the emergency exit. A heavy steel padlock hung from the exterior latch. Valentina’s guards had not merely pushed her into the storm—they had locked the door from the outside to ensure she could never claw her way back in.
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A red haze settled over Luca’s vision. The cold calculated businessman, the tactician who measured lives in ledgers, vanished entirely. In his place stood the monster the underworld whispered about in terror.
He kicked open the service door with a violent crash that tore the frame from the concrete masonry, carrying the dying girl back into the warmth of the mansion.
