The dining hall wasn’t used for meals anymore. Not for decades.

The chandelier above them glowed low, gold and warm over a long stretch of mahogany, its varnish worn at the corners from elbows and years of secrets. The men around the table wore tailored suits and colder expressions, all waiting for Giancarlo Moretti to speak.

He sat at the head.

Still. Straight-backed. Hands folded like prayer. A silver ring on each finger. His left wrist rested beside a scotch glass he hadn’t touched. He never drank during meetings. That would imply comfort. He didn’t like his men comfortable.

“The Colombian is bluffing,” he said at last. His voice was low, quiet. Like gravel rolling in snow. “He’s holding dead product and trying to drive up price. That tells me he’s already lost a buyer.”

There were nods. A few relieved exhales. Giancarlo hadn’t raised his voice — that was always a good sign.

“We cut twenty percent,” he continued. “Match the rumor. Offer it overseas first. Wait two weeks. When they crawl back, we take everything at half cost.”

He raised a single finger. Rocco leaned forward immediately.

“Write that down. And don’t make me say it twice.”

A faint, muted vibration buzzed on the table.

Giancarlo’s phone.

He didn’t check his phone during meetings either. Not ever.

Until now.

His eyes flicked to the screen. No urgency in the movement, just... curiosity. The men around him continued talking strategy, unaware that in the space of a breath, the world had changed.

He picked it up and turned it over.

Notification: CAMERA 3B — Motion Detected.

His thumb tapped the alert. The feed opened.

The room filled his screen in grey tones — delicate wallpaper, soft lamp light, lace curtains pulled back at the window. Her room. Her space. Untouched, quiet.

But she wasn’t in the frame.

Instead, a figure.

Male. Young. Standing just inside the doorway.

One of the new boys.

Giancarlo's back straightened further, though it seemed impossible. His hand lowered the phone just slightly, eyes still fixed on the footage. He watched the boy’s movement — slow, hesitant. His eyes moved around the room like a thief. Like a hunter.

Where the fuck was she?

He slowly set the phone down beside the glass of scotch, untouched. His face did not change. Not even a flicker.

Rocco was mid-sentence. “If we shift the port route back to—”

Giancarlo raised his hand.

Every voice stopped.

His captains looked up — confused, wary. No one moved.

Giancarlo spoke softly.

“Someone is in her room.”

You could’ve heard a pin drop.

Rocco blinked. “Sir?”

“She’s not there,” he said, still looking at the feed. “But someone is.”

He stood up. It wasn’t abrupt. It wasn’t rushed. It was final.

“The meeting is paused.”

He buttoned his jacket with slow, deliberate fingers.

“Do not follow me. Do not speak. And if any of you knew this boy’s name before tonight and failed to inform me of his proximity to her, I want your resignation on my desk by morning.”

No one answered. No one even breathed.

He picked up his phone and left the room without another word.

---

The hall was dim, quiet except for the echo of his shoes across marble. One of the guards on duty stepped forward out of habit.

Giancarlo didn’t stop walking. Didn’t even look at him.

“Pull the guest list from the east wing,” he said. “I want every new face reviewed by midnight. If they’ve spoken to her, touched her door, looked at her too long—erase them.”

The guard nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“And call the gardener.”

“The—gardener, sir?”

“She likes him. He’ll know if she’s hiding.”

---

He reached the private wing in twenty-seven steps. He always counted.

The door to her room was cracked open. Just barely.

That was the first mistake.

The second was the boy standing near her dresser, looking at one of her books — her books — as if he had a right.

He turned as Giancarlo entered.

The blood left his face so fast you could smell the fear before it reached his skin.

“Mr. Moretti—sir, I didn’t—she asked me to bring—”

“Her name,” Giancarlo said, voice like still ice, “does not belong in your mouth.”

“I swear, I wasn’t—”

“Where is she.”

The words were flat. A command.

“I—I don’t know. She said she forgot something in the atrium—”

Giancarlo stepped forward once.

The boy backed up into the desk, knocking over a porcelain trinket box. It shattered on the floor.

It wasn’t loud. But Giancarlo’s hands clenched behind his back.

“You’ve been in this house for how long?”

“Six days—sir.”

“You’ve eaten my food. Slept under my roof. Worn my crest. And you walked into her room without a knock. Without my permission.”

The boy opened his mouth to speak.

Giancarlo raised a hand. The same hand that had once signed a treaty and shot a traitor in the same hour.

“I don’t need to know why. I only need to know where she is.”

“She said she’d be back—”

“She lied,” Giancarlo said, already moving past him.

Not running.

Hunting.

And someone — somewhere — had to pay.

Because in this house, in this world, her disappearing for even a second was not an accident.

It was an act of war.