Bianca Romano placed a dog bowl filled with leftover breakfast on the floor.

The first thing Vittorio Romano saw was his five-year-old daughter on her knees.

Lucy’s cardigan had bunched beneath her arms. One of her flats had slipped halfway off her heel. In front of her, on the cream-colored carpet of the breakfast room, sat the dog’s stainless-steel bowl filled with cold eggs, torn toast, and scraps of sausage.

Bianca stood over her.

“If she behaves like an animal, she eats like one.”

With the toe of one expensive heel, Bianca pushed Lucy’s untouched breakfast plate farther beneath the dining table.

Marcus Hale leaned against the wall near the antique map rack, laughing under his breath.

Vittorio had entered from the adjoining council room without either of them noticing.

He stopped only long enough to understand what he was seeing.

Then he crossed the room.

Lucy looked up.

“Daddy…”

He lifted her before her hands could touch the food. She wrapped both arms around his neck so hard her fingers caught beneath his collar.

“But I’m a human being,” she sobbed.

Vittorio’s expression changed.

Not loudly. Not theatrically.

Something simply left his face.

Near the doorway, Emma Clark stood holding her phone in both hands.

“I recorded it,” she said.

Her voice barely worked.

Vittorio looked at her.

Emma unlocked the phone.

The video had started several minutes earlier. Bianca could be seen forcing Lucy toward the bowl again and again while Marcus watched. Once, Lucy tried to crawl toward her chair. Bianca caught the back of her cardigan and pulled her away.

Marcus checked his watch.

Then he walked to the main hallway door and closed it.

But not the door leading to Vittorio’s council room.

Emma’s video showed that one remained slightly open.

Vittorio looked up.

Marcus moved first.

He lunged for Emma’s phone.

Vittorio handed Lucy toward Emma, stepped between them, caught Marcus’s arm, and hit him once across the face.

Marcus staggered backward into the antique map rack. Wood cracked. Rolled maps spilled across the carpet as the frame tipped over him.

Bianca reached toward Lucy.

Vittorio knocked her hand away and slapped her hard enough to send her backward onto the leather ottoman. The ottoman slid into two low tables, scattering trays and cushions.

Nobody moved for several seconds.

Vittorio picked up the dog bowl.

He placed it on the carpet in front of Bianca.

“Enjoy your last meal.”

Bianca’s face tightened with fear.

Marcus, bleeding from the mouth beneath the broken rack, did something Vittorio did not expect.

He smiled.

“You idiot,” Marcus said.

Vittorio turned.