Chapter 1 - THE DEADbolt AT THREE IN THE MORNING
The click of the deadbolt sounded like a gunshot inside the silent kitchen.
I froze beside the industrial sink with one hand beneath freezing water and the other wrapped around a copper skillet I had already scrubbed three times.
Carmine DeLuca stood in front of the locked service door.
Beyond the marble island, the private chef, four housekeepers, and two suited guards waited without moving. Nobody spoke when Carmine looked at them.
“Leave.”
They obeyed immediately.
Shoes crossed the stone floor. The chef lowered his eyes. One guard glanced toward me, then quickly looked away.
Within seconds, the kitchen was empty except for Carmine and me.
Almost empty.
A shadow remained beneath the service door.
Someone stood in the hallway listening.
Carmine noticed it too.
He turned the deadbolt once more, then placed himself between the door and the sink.
Not trapping me.
Guarding the only entrance.
His black shirt was rolled above his tattooed forearms. An untouched whiskey glass rested on the counter behind him. He had entered the kitchen looking tired and suspicious.
Now his dark eyes remained fixed on my face.
“Who hurt you?”
I lowered my head.
My left cheek was swollen. My lower lip had opened again while I worked. The torn collar of my uniform no longer covered the fingerprints around my throat.
“I fell on the service stairs.”
Carmine looked toward the bruises.
“The stairs have hands?”
I gripped the skillet harder.
“I apologize, sir. I can finish my shift.”
He reached toward the running faucet.
My body reacted before my mind did.
I flinched so violently that the skillet struck the sink and water splashed across the front of my uniform.
Carmine stopped immediately.
His hand remained suspended in the air.
Something changed in his expression.
Not offense.
Recognition.
He understood that I had expected him to strike me.
He lowered his hand slowly and reached past me without touching my body. He turned off the faucet.
The sudden silence made my breathing sound enormous.
Carmine pulled a wooden stool from beneath the counter and sat until his eyes were level with mine.
Then he placed a clean white towel within reach.
“He said he would kill me if I spoke,” I whispered.
Carmine’s face became perfectly still.
“Does he work inside this house?”
I looked toward the locked door.
The shadow beneath it shifted.
My fingers closed around the towel.
“He commands your guards.”
The handle turned once.
Carmine did not look away from me.
His right hand moved to the heavy black and gold signet ring on his finger. Every employee in the DeLuca estate knew what it meant.
It was not jewelry.
It was authority.
The person wearing the ring spoke under Carmine’s protection. No guard could search them, remove them from the property, or question them without Carmine present.
He removed it and held it open in his palm.
“Ivy, may I place this on your hand?”
I stared at him.
Powerful men had asked permission before.
Sometimes the question was only another form of command.
Carmine waited.
He did not reach for me.
I looked into his eyes and gave one trembling nod.
He slid the ring onto my finger without touching the bruises around my wrist.
It was too large, heavy, and warm from his skin.
“Wear this. No one in my world touches you again.”
The door handle stopped moving.
Carmine rose and positioned himself fully between me and the hallway.
The security camera above the entrance rotated toward the narrow glass panel.
Marco Vale stood outside.
Carmine’s senior security captain had served him for twenty years. He wore a charcoal suit and black leather gloves.
Fresh scratches crossed his right hand.
One silver cuff button was missing.
I felt something hard inside my torn collar.
My fingers found a small metal disk caught in the fabric.
An identical silver button.
Carmine saw it resting in my palm.
Marco saw it through the glass.
His expression did not change.
Then another shadow moved behind him.
Someone taller stood just beyond the camera angle.
Marco slowly removed his hand from the door.
Carmine looked toward the small voice recorder hidden beneath the counter.
Its blue light continued blinking.
He had noticed it before I did.
Every word I had spoken was preserved.
Marco leaned closer to the glass.
“Carmine,” he called. “Do not believe anything she says.”
Carmine unlocked neither bolt.
“Why is your button inside her collar?”
Marco glanced toward the second shadow.
“I found her after someone attacked her.”
“Then why did she say the man commands my guards?”
“She is frightened and confused.”
My shame transformed into anger.
“I know your voice.”
Marco’s face tightened.
Carmine looked at me.
“What did he say?”
I forced myself to answer.
“He said maids disappear every day. He said you would believe him before you believed me.”
The second shadow stepped away.
Marco looked over his shoulder, but whoever had been standing behind him was already gone.
Then the estate lights flickered.
The security camera stopped rotating.
A red warning appeared on the control panel beside the door.
MASTER ACCESS OVERRIDE.
Only Carmine possessed the master code.
He looked down at the signet ring on my finger.
Then at Marco.
Someone inside the estate had copied more than a button.
May you like
They had copied Carmine’s authority.
Continue to the next part: Carmine seals the estate and discovers that the attack on Ivy began after she found an access card belonging to her father, a man the DeLuca family claimed died eighteen years earlier.
