Chapter 4 - Echoes Across the Corridor
The drone of the vacuum cleaner masked the retreat of the three brothers, but Maeve knew the truce was temporary, paper-thin, and entirely deceptive. Roman had not intervened to protect her; he had intervened to assert his dominance over Declan. In the twisted psychology of men like the Falcones, order was paramount. A maid talking back was an anomaly, but a younger brother throwing a public tantrum in the foyer was a breach of protocol.
By ten in the morning, the coastal fog outside had burned off, replaced by a cold, blinding Rhode Island glare. The sunlight poured through the floor-to-ceiling French windows of the ground-floor gallery, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air like scattered diamonds.
Maeve pushed her cleaning cart down the long, wood-paneled hallway leading toward the estate's service wing. Her back throbbed with a dull, persistent ache. She hadn't slept more than four hours the night before, having spent most of it wiping Clara’s fevered forehead and checking the balance on their depleted checking account. Two hundred and fourteen dollars. That was all that stood between them and the street. The agency had promised five hundred for three days of deep cleaning at Blackwood Manor, but after the scene in the foyer, she wondered if she’d make it to sundown without being dumped into the icy waters off Brenton Point.
As she passed the library doors, which stood ajar by a few inches, the murmur of lowered voices drifted out into the corridor.
“—the shipment from Montreal was short forty crates,” Declan’s voice snapped, still raw with irritation. “The driver said the manifest was tampered with before it crossed the border at Derby Line.”
“It wasn't Montreal,” Gabriel’s smooth, melodic voice countered, accompanied by the distinct clinking of ice against crystal. “The paper trail leads right back to our friends in Providence. Someone is skimming off the top and betting that we’re too distracted by the harbor expansion to notice.”
“Let them bet,” Roman’s voice cut in, cold and final. “We don’t react until the audit is complete. Find the missing link, Gabriel. When you find it, give the name to Declan.”
A sinister silence followed, punctuated only by Declan’s low, satisfied grunt.
Maeve walked faster, the rubber wheels of her cleaning cart squeaking slightly against the herringbone parquet floor. She didn't want to hear. She didn't want to know. Ignorance was the only currency that kept collateral damage alive in houses like this.
She turned the corner into the vast, industrial-grade kitchen. It was a cathedral of brushed steel, black slate countertops, and commercial appliances capable of feeding an army. The house was dead quiet here; the estate's private chef had apparently finished the morning prep and departed, leaving the surfaces gleaming and vacant.
Maeve set her bucket in the deep sink, her reflection staring back at her from the polished chrome faucet. She looked pale. Her messy bun was slipping further down the nape of her neck, strands of brown hair framing her hollowed cheeks.
She turned the cold water tap on, splashing her face, trying to wash away the phantom weight of Roman Falcone’s stare. There had been something terrifyingly clinical about the way the eldest brother had looked at her—not with Declan’s hot rage or Gabriel’s patronizing amusement, but with the steady calculation of an accountant auditing a ledger.
May you like
She reached for the clean linen roll to dry her face, but before the towel touched her skin, the heavy swing door of the kitchen burst open with a violent kick.
***
