The whisper came again.

“Sophia… don’t answer him.”

Every hair on my arms stood up.

Whoever was outside knew my name.

I had never told anyone in the Rossi mansion.

Lorenzo turned toward the locked door.

“Who’s there?”

Silence.

Only Leo’s weak breathing filled the nursery.

The lock rattled once.

Then stopped.

Lorenzo pressed a button hidden beneath the crib.

Nothing happened.

His expression changed instantly.

“The panic system is offline.”

He grabbed his phone.

No signal.

Someone had disabled the private network inside the nursery.

Leo suddenly cried again.

This time it wasn’t from hunger.

His tiny body trembled violently against my chest.

I looked toward the half-empty bottle on the table.

Something wasn’t right.

The formula smelled strange.

Not spoiled.

Chemical.

I handed the bottle to Lorenzo.

“Smell it.”

He frowned.

Then his face darkened.

“Don’t move.”

He walked to the sleeping nurse.

She wasn’t asleep.

She was unconscious.

A pulse beat weakly beneath her neck.

Someone had drugged her.

Lorenzo looked back at me.

“You were right.”

Before either of us could speak again, Marco, his chief of security, shouted from the hallway.

“Boss! Open the door!”

“It’s locked!”

“We know!”

Metal slammed against the outside.

The reinforced door didn’t move.

Then Marco’s voice dropped.

“Don’t trust anyone who comes out.”

Lorenzo froze.

“What do you mean?”

“We just checked the cameras.”

Another crash echoed through the hallway.

“The nursery hallway was empty.”

My stomach tightened.

“But…”

Marco’s breathing became ragged.

“…someone locked that door from the inside.”

The room fell silent.

There was no one else inside.

Only Lorenzo.

Leo.

The unconscious nurse.

And me.

A cold realization spread across Lorenzo’s face.

He slowly looked toward the large antique mirror hanging above the fireplace.

Without saying a word, he walked closer.

His fingers touched the wooden frame.

Click.

The entire mirror shifted forward a few inches.

A hidden passage.

Fresh footprints covered the dust inside.

Someone had been watching the nursery.

Watching Leo.

Watching all of us.

Lorenzo drew his pistol again.

Not at me.

At the darkness beyond the secret corridor.

Then a slow clap echoed from inside the passage.

One.

Two.

Three.

A man’s voice drifted through the darkness.

“I wondered how long it would take you to notice.”

Lorenzo’s face turned completely white.

It was the voice of his younger brother.

The brother everyone had buried three years earlier.

Read the entire Part 2 below.