Chapter one

Sapphire’s POV

“Open the gate!”

The voice thundered through the mansion just as I was about to take my morning coffee. The sound was so loud, that it vibrated straight through the walls. The tea cup slipped from my fingers, shattering against the floor.

The servants instantly froze in their duty posts, turning into statues immediately due to the panic.

Another loud, echoing bang shook the front entrance, rattling the massive glass chandeliers overhead.

“Federal Financial Crimes Unit! Open the gate immediately!”

“What…” I whispered, looking around the room, but nobody would meet my eyes.

Before anyone could answer, the heavy iron estate gates outside swung open. Black SUVs rolled into the driveway one after another in a convoy. Men in dark, crisp suits climbed out of the vehicles with thick folders tucked beneath their arms.

Our head butler was trembling so hard but he had to go to the grand entrance to intercept them from coming inside the mansion.

“Sir, you can’t just….”

He was pushed aside even before he could complete his sentence.

At that moment, the only thing registered in my head was to run and I did just that.

“Sapphire!” one of the maids called after me, her voice pitched higher than usual.

I ignored her.

By the time I reached the grand foyer, Papa stood perfectly upright at the foot of the sweeping staircase, entirely calm despite the dozen armed officers rapidly surrounding him. He didn’t look frightened, neither was there any trace of shock on his face.

He looked different… maybe disappointed .

“Astor Giovanni,” the lead investigator announced, unfolding a document. “You are under arrest for financial fraud, conspiracy, and laundering illicit funds. Anything you say may be used against you in court.”

The silence that came after that was suffocating and everybody just turned to papa, watching to see what he’d do next. But he remained still.

“No,” I breathed, the sound dying in my throat.

An officer stepped forward, pulling a pair of heavy metal handcuffs from his belt.

“Papa!””

I lunged forward, desperate to tear him away from them, but someone caught my arm with an tight grip.

Sophia.

Her fingers tightened around my wrist, anchoring me to the spot.

“Don’t,” she muttered.

“They’re arresting him!” I screamed, twisting against her hold. “Sophia, do something!”

“I can see that, Sapphire.”

Her voice was steady. She was way too calm for someone whose father was about to get arrested. She looked at our father’s handcuffs as if she had been expecting them to arrive all morning.

Papa lifted his head, the cold light from the foyer reflecting off his hair. His eyes swept across the room, bypassing me entirely.

His gaze found Sophia first and it rested on her.

“If the lawyers arrive before noon,” he said calmly, “tell them to check the blue file.”

Sophia nodded, “I will.”

I frowned, the confusion cutting through my panic. “What blue file? What are you talking about?”

Neither of them answered. It was like I wasn't even standing in the room.

The officers began leading Papa toward the double doors.

Reporters hungry for a scandal had somehow arrived before the police convoy was even fully ready to leave.

“Mr. Giovanni!”

“Did you steal investors’ money?”

“Are you connected to organized crime?”

“Miss Giovanni! Miss Giovanni!”

Microphones stretched towards us. The security guards who were supposed to keep the reporters away, were nowhere in sight. They probably ran off when the convoy invaded the mansion.

Papa paused right before entering the back of the police vehicle. For a single heartbeat, I thought he’d look at me. I thought he’d give me some sign that everything was going to be okay.

Instead, he looked at Sophia again.

“You know what to do.”

The police vehicles had barely disappeared beyond the gates before the vultures arrived.

By sunset, officials were everywhere.

Some walked through the mansion with clipboards in hand, sticking bright orange seizure notices onto paintings that had hung on our walls for years.

Others photographed every room, every piece of furniture, every sculpture Papa had proudly collected over the years.

I stood helplessly at the foot of the staircase as two men carefully lifted the grand piano from the ballroom.

Papa said mother used to play that piano every Sunday afternoon before she died. He even had a picture of her beside the piano in his private study.

One of the movers accidentally scraped its polished surface against the doorway.

I winced at the sound, It felt like they were dragging away the last memory I had of her.

While the servants had already packed their belongings into cardboard boxes.

Most of them couldn’t even look me in the eye.

Mrs. Clara, our elderly housekeeper who had worked for our family for almost twenty years, stopped in front of me with tears glistening in her eyes.

“I’m sorry, Miss Sapphire,” she whispered. “The government has frozen your family’s accounts. We… we haven’t been paid.”

“You don’t have to leave,” I said quickly, desperation creeping into my voice. “We’ll figure something out.”

She offered me a sad smile.

“I wish we could.” Then she hugged me.

For a brief moment, I felt a child clinging onto her mother. But then she pulled away, she wiped her eyes and walked out of the mansion without looking back.

One by one, the others followed. The chef, the gardeners, cleaners, even the security guards.

By evening, the silence had become unbearable. I wandered toward the front windows and carefully pulled the curtains aside.

The reporters were still gathered outside the gate. In no time the news of the Giovanni empire crumbling would be on every news and a good topic for every social gathering.

*****

Two weeks later, the mansion no longer smelled of fresh flowers and expensive perfume.

It felt like everything stopped working when papa got arrested, even the grand fountain outside, the one that used to serve for the entertainment of our guests, had stopped running, leaving a stagnant pool of water in the courtyard.

I wandered into the kitchen and opened the stainless-steel refrigerator.

Half a loaf of stale bread. One single bottle of water, a block of hardening butter and that was all we had left. The workers probably ran off with all the eatables too.

I stared blankly at the empty shelves, the cold light illuminating the hollow space. Two weeks ago, this refrigerator had been overflowing with imported cheeses, fresh exotic fruit, and seafood flown in from abroad on private flights. Now it looked like an abandoned warehouse.

“Don’t waste time hoping it’ll magically refill.”

Sophia’s voice drifted in from the dining room.

I turned around to find her sitting at the long table, entirely surrounded by mountains of paper. Every time I tried to help, she had refused bluntly, saying I’d probably not know what to do and papa only trusted her with this kind of stuff.

I can only assume the papers were compilation of bills, court notices, asset seizure notices and what not.

“Our accounts are frozen,” she said, her fingers mechanically flipping through a spreadsheet without looking up at me. “Every single one. They locked the offshore funds yesterday morning.”

I closed the refrigerator door quietly.

“So… what do we do?” I asked, stepping into the dining room. “We can't just sit here until they take the house, too.”

She finally stopped flipping the papers. She slowly lifted her head, and for the first time since Papa’s arrest, I saw her brows arched in worry. She looked exhausted. The dark circles under her eyes were prominent, and her posture was not so perfect anymore.

“We survive,” she said flatly.