Three identical billionaire brothers tried to intimidate their new housekeeper, completely unprepared for her fearless, sharp response.

Maeve froze, her hands still wedged beneath the heavy mattress.

She slowly lifted her head. Standing in the center of the doorway, leaning against the dark walnut frame with his arms crossed over his chest, was Gabriel.

He had abandoned his coffee mug. His unstructured blazer was unbuttoned, revealing the casual luxury of his silk shirt. His face was no longer wearing the easy, mocking smirk from the kitchen. His features had settled into something sharper, cooler, and infinitely more focused.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. The ticking of a sleek, minimalist clock on the mantle was the only sound in the vast room.

Maeve slowly pulled her hands out from under the mattress, straightening her spine. She kept the bed between them, her jaw set.

“Can I help you, Mr. Falcone?” she asked, her voice laced with defensive irritation. “I was told your brother needed this room finished by noon.”

Gabriel didn't answer immediately. He pushed off the doorframe, taking two slow, deliberate steps into the room. His eyes never left her face. When he spoke, the words came out like cold silver coins dropped onto stone.

“Twelve thousand six hundred seventeen dollars.”

Maeve stopped breathing.

The sheet slipped from her fingers, pooling loosely against the charcoal carpet. The room suddenly seemed to spin slightly on its axis, the cold Rhode Island air rushing out of her lungs.

“What?” she whispered. The word barely had enough air behind it to form.

Gabriel smiled. It wasn't the amused smirk from the foyer or the playful grin from the kitchen. It was the tight, razor-thin smile of a man who had just played an ace in a game the other player didn't even know they were losing.

“Twelve thousand six hundred seventeen dollars,” Gabriel repeated, his voice silky, melodious, and terrifyingly precise. “And forty-two cents, to be entirely accurate. That’s what you owe.”

Maeve’s hands trembled, but she instantly clenched them into fists, hiding them in the folds of her apron. Her mind raced through a blinding corridor of panic. *How? How could he know that?*

That wasn't an approximation. That wasn't a guess. That was the exact, penny-perfect sum of the outstanding medical debt owed to St. Jude’s Memorial Hospital for Clara’s emergency pulmonary treatments—the debt that had been bought out three weeks ago by an anonymous private collection agency called Harborline Asset Management.

The agency that had sent her a final notice with a black wax seal.

“I don't know what you’re talking about,” Maeve lied, her voice shaking despite every ounce of willpower she possessed. Her face went ashen, all the defiant color draining from her cheeks until she looked as cold as the sea outside.

“Don't insult my intelligence, Maeve,” Gabriel said softly, using her first name for the first time. The sound of it on his lips felt like a brand. “Harborline isn't a debt collector. Harborline is an auxiliary holding company registered under the Falcone Commercial Trust. We bought the paper on your late father’s defaulted logistics loans four months ago. And when your little sister went into respiratory failure last autumn... well, those hospital liens transferred automatically to the primary creditor.”

Maeve backed up half a step until the edge of the mattress hit the back of her knees. Her chest rose and fell in rapid, shallow gasps.

“You...” She struggled to find her voice, her throat dry as sand. “You arranged this. The cleaning agency. Mrs. Gable.”

“Mrs. Gable has owed my family favors since before you were born,” Gabriel said with a casual shrug. “You didn't get this job because your resume was impressive, sweetheart. You got this job because we wanted you in this house.”

The terror in her gut flared into a sudden, blinding flash of desperate fury. “Clara has nothing to do with this! My father died three years ago! If this is about his debts, take the apartment! Take whatever you want, but leave her out of it!”

“Gabriel.”