Chapter 1 - The Smell of Sandalwood and Salt
“Will you stay?”
Those three words frightened me more than any threat I had heard inside that New Orleans mansion, because they came from Emilio Corsaro, the mafia boss half the city feared, and he could barely stand without a cane. Then he whispered, “Let me hold you once,” but after nineteen months of cleaning his rooms, I finally told the most dangerous man I knew no.
My name is Etta Malloy, although almost nobody in Corsaro House knew my last name. To them, I was simply the quiet woman who cleaned Emilio’s private wing three evenings a week.
At thirty-four, Emilio looked decades older. His expensive suits hung from his shoulders, his cheeks had hollowed, and sometimes I could hear him struggling to breathe from the hallway.
“I’ll pay you,” he said.
“That makes it worse.”
His eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“Because tomorrow I still have to work here. Mrs. Tunney will know by breakfast, the kitchen by noon, and your brother before supper.”
“Nobody would dare.”
“They don’t have to say it in front of you.”
That silenced him.
Then I noticed the little cloth sachet inside his bedside drawer.
Mine.
Orange peel, lavender, and cedar.
“You took that from my pocket.”
“You dropped it.”
“And sent it to a laboratory?”
His fingers tightened around his cane. “Yes.”
“For four thousand dollars?”
“Yes.”
I nearly laughed. “They found nothing because it’s dried orange peel.”
Instead of answering, Emilio told me about forty-three blood draws, three machines, specialists flown in from Houston, and a private physician earning more in a year than I might see in ten.
Then his voice softened.
“In six weeks, I slept eleven full nights.”
I waited.
“You worked this wing every one of them.”
“Three evenings a week.”
“Eleven out of eleven, Etta. Why?”
My eyes moved toward the tall window behind his bed. Paint along one corner had been swollen for months, and I had reported it once.
Nobody listened.
“Tell me what to do,” Emilio said.
That surprised me.
He didn’t command me.
He asked.
I crossed the room and pressed my finger into the swollen paint.
“Open the window.”
“It was sealed for security.”
“I know.”
“Four buildings have sightlines into this room.”
“I know.”
“Dr. Prentiss says outside air could make me worse.”
“Then I can’t help you.”
Before leaving, I switched off the ceramic diffuser on his mantel. The suffocating sandalwood fragrance slowly disappeared.
“You always turn that off,” Emilio said.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Anything that needs to smell that strong is covering something.”
Three nights later, Emilio finally listened.
He moved into the conservatory, the only room in Corsaro House where fresh air actually came from outside. Glass walls surrounded citrus trees and orchids, while morning sunlight poured across furniture that had barely been used.
When I entered, his skin looked different.
Not healthy, but less gray.
Less dead.
Then footsteps sounded behind me.
Rafe Corsaro entered with two attorneys.
Emilio’s younger brother carried a leather folder under his arm, and I recognized enough legal paperwork to understand the words printed across the exposed first page.
Temporary authorization.
Rafe smiled. “Emilio, this is just precautionary.”
My stomach tightened.
Three nights earlier, Emilio had looked too sick to argue with anyone. Now, sitting beneath real sunlight with color slowly returning to his face, he looked strong enough to understand exactly what his brother wanted him to sign.
I looked at Rafe.
His smile had disappeared.
May you like
Then Emilio reached for the folder.
And suddenly, I understood why Rafe had never expected his brother to recover.
