Chapter 1 -bound books, and expensive bourbon. Outside the tall, arched windows, a cold October wind whipped against the heavy glass, rattling the frames and casting jagged shadows across the polished walnut floor. It was past eleven at night, but the house remained wide awake, humming with the invisible, lethal electricity that always accompanied Dante Romano’s presence.
I was kneeling beside the marble fireplace, carefully sweeping fragments of shattered crystal into a small brass dustpan. A heated argument between Dante and one of his capos ten minutes earlier had ended with a whiskey tumbler crashing against the stone hearth. The men responsible had stomped out of the room without ever noticing what remained scattered beneath their expensive shoes.
A shadow fell across the floor.
Dante stood in the doorway, his broad shoulders filling the arch. His black suit jacket hung open, his silk tie was completely gone, and the entire household had already grown quieter just because he was home.
"You're going to cut yourself," he said, his deep, gravelly voice cutting through the silence.
I looked up, keeping my posture straight despite the exhaustion aching in my lower back. "I'm almost finished."
"I have people for that."
"I am people for that."
His jaw tightened, a muscle ticking near his clean-shaven cheek.
Eleven months earlier, I had entered the Romano estate as a low-level maid. I needed work desperately after my mother’s sudden death and the crushing medical debts that followed. Dante needed employees who understood absolute discretion and could keep their mouths shut. The arrangement should have remained strictly professional, distant, and simple.
It had stopped being simple three months ago, when I found him bleeding from a knife wound in the kitchen long after midnight and refused to leave until the household physician arrived.
"You can fire me tomorrow," I had told him then, pressing a sterile bandage against his shoulder while he cursed at me. "Tonight, sit down and shut up."
He had actually sat.
After that night, everything shifted. He began looking for me in the hallways before asking for his morning coffee. Conversations stretched out far beyond their practical purpose. When a severe case of pneumonia weakened my lungs, he didn't send me away; he moved me into the west corridor, right beside the physician’s private quarters.
I recovered. But he never moved me back.
"Nobody touches her things," he had sternly instructed the head housekeeper when she tried to reassign the room.
Foolishly, blindly, I had mistaken that rare protection for permanence.
Then, the sharp click of high heels echoed against the marble tiles outside the library.
A tall, striking woman appeared behind Dante, wearing an immaculate cream wool coat over a tailored black dress. Her dark hair was styled into a flawless chignon, and expensive diamonds caught the firelight at her throat.
"Dante," she purred.
"Isabella."
My hands paused over the dustpan. I recognized the name instantly. Isabella Conti had once been his most notorious lover, and their powerful families had formally expected a high-society marriage neither of them ever completed. She had betrayed his confidence years earlier by leaking sensitive cartel negotiation details to her own brother. Dante had ended the relationship overnight and banished her from his circle without ever explaining the full consequences.
Now, Isabella needed protection.
Her brother had mysteriously vanished, and someone had sent death threats targeting Conti properties across the state. Dante possessed the intelligence network required to extract information, and an old political agreement forced his hand.
One night, he had told the household staff earlier that evening. Nothing more.
Isabella looked down at me kneeling on the floor, her lips curling into a cold, superior smile. "You still collect strays, Dante."
Dante’s voice dropped an octave, freezing the air in the room. "Careful, Isabella."
"It was just a joke."
I rose quietly with the dustpan, dumped the glass shards into the wastebin, and walked past them without a word. But Isabella’s dark eyes followed every step I took into the corridor.
An hour later, I was upstairs in the linen room folding freshly laundered towels when Isabella strolled in, trailing the scent of expensive French perfume.
"That room at the end of the west corridor," she said, leaning casually against the doorframe. "Is it yours?"
"Yes."
"How interesting. It used to be mine."
My hands stopped folding. "Excuse me?"
"Years ago," Isabella continued smoothly, watching my reaction with predatory amusement. "Before the recent renovation. The balcony faces the sunset, and Dante used to come there after midnight."
I set the towel down slowly, my chest tightening. "Whatever happened between you two isn't my business."
"Of course not. You're just staff."
Suddenly, Dante appeared behind her in the doorway. "Isabella."
She turned around instantly, her expression shifting into one of fragile distress. "I was just asking about the west room, darling. The bed in the guest wing feels terribly stiff."
"It's occupied," Dante said flatly.
"I prefer the west wing."
"No."
A rush of pure relief moved through my chest before I could hide it.
Isabella saw that relief. And her expression hardened.
"The other available suite faces the main road," she sighed dramatically, pressing a hand to her chest. "Since my mother’s accident, traffic noise at night brings on severe panic attacks."
"It has heavy insulated windows," Dante replied, unmoving.
"Please, Dante. I haven't slept properly since my brother disappeared. Just for tonight. Please."
Dante rubbed the back of his neck, his eyes troubled.
He looked toward the west corridor. There were twenty-three bedrooms in this sprawling mansion. I knew that exact number because I had personally cleaned every single one of them.
He didn't look at me once before speaking.
"Sophia."
My stomach plummeted into an abyss.
"Yes, Mr. Romano?"
"Give Isabella the west room tonight."
I stared down at the crisp white towels beneath my hands, feeling as though the air had been sucked out of the room. "My room?"
"Only for one night," he said dismissively, as if trading away my personal sanctuary was as trivial as handing over a pen. "You can use the blue guest suite down the hall."
Isabella lowered her eyes, brilliantly concealing a triumphant smile.
I waited for Dante to turn around. I waited for him to ask whether I minded, whether I was comfortable, whether it was an imposition.
He waited for me to agree without complaint.
May you like
And in the heavy, suffocating silence that followed, I finally understood the brutal truth: there was no actual difference between being protected by a mafia boss and being permitted to stay at his absolute mercy.
I didn't argue. I didn't cry. I just nodded quietly, picked up my apron, and began to pack.
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