Chapter 2 - The Voice in the Wall
“Don't bother trying the handle, Lorenzo,” the synthesized voice hissed from the ceiling speaker.
The sound was heavily modulated, stripped of any natural cadence, but there was an underlying arrogance to the delivery that made my blood boil. It was someone who knew the house layout, knew the security protocols, and knew precisely how to exploit my blinding obsession with keeping Leo alive.
“Identify yourself,” I snarled, stepping toward the wall and aiming my pistol uselessly at the speaker grille.
“Names don't matter in a morgue,” the voice replied, a cruel chuckle echoing through the static. “You spent two months tearing the city apart looking for the men who planted the bomb in Isabella’s car. You burned down warehouses, you threw rival bosses off piers, you played God in the shadows. But you were looking outward, Lorenzo. You never looked down at your own dinner table.”
My grip on the Beretta tightened until my knuckles turned white. “If you touch my son, I will carve you into pieces while you’re still breathing.”
“Your son is already dead, Rossi,” the speaker mocked. “The autopsy reports are going to read natural causes—infant nutritional failure. A tragic end for a sickly child whose mother died of a broken heart. The sedative in the nurse’s carafe was just a courtesy to keep her from screaming. But you… you had to go off-script. You had to bring a stray into the nursery.”
My eyes flicked back toward Hannah. She was still sitting on the edge of the rocking chair, her face pale, shielding Leo as the baby drifted into a calm, exhausted sleep against her chest.
A stray.
The voice on the speaker knew about Hannah. They knew she had lost her baby just weeks ago. They knew about her milk coming in, about her secret grief, about the bandages wrapped tightly around her ribs. That meant the surveillance system in this house wasn't just recording external threats—it was being monitored from within.
“You planted her,” I said, the realization hitting me like a physical blow. “You brought her into the estate.”
“Oh, please,” the voice scoffed. “Do you really think I hired an unvetted local girl? No, Lorenzo. People in grief are desperate. They make mistakes. All it took was a little anonymous tip to the employment agency, a forged recommendation letter, and a desperate mother looking for a paycheck to pay off her evicted landlord. She walked right through your front door with a fake ID, and you never even checked her background because you were too busy mourning your dead wife.”
Hannah gasped, her eyes widening in horror as she looked at me. “Mr. Rossi… I swear to God, I didn't know! I needed the work, my baby girl died at City General, they were going to throw me out on the street—!”
“Shut up,” I snapped, not out of anger toward her, but to keep her silent while I calculated our next move.
If the voice on the speaker was right—if Hannah had been placed here as an unwitting pawn—then her presence in the nursery right now was an anomaly they hadn't planned for. They expected Brenda the night nurse to be awake, or at least unconscious until morning, by which time Leo’s starvation would have reached a critical, irreversible threshold. Hannah entering the room off-schedule had broken their timeline.
“What do you want?” I demanded into the speaker. “Money? The syndicates? Take everything. Every account, every property in Zurich, every shipping container in New Jersey. Just open the door.”
“Money?” The voice laughed—a dry, mechanical sound. “I don't want your money, Lorenzo. I want what you felt when you stood outside that operating room covered in Isabella’s blood. I want you to feel the helplessness of watching your world burn to ash while you stand behind locked glass.”
A sudden, sharp hiss filled the room.
May you like
I whipped my head toward the ventilation grate above the changing table. A thin, sweet-smelling white vapor began to billow out, curling lazily in the amber light of the nursery.
Gas.
