If you breathe a word, Mr. Moretti, we both die before we hit the floor.
Marco’s heavy footsteps lingered just outside the closet door, a chilling echo against the polished marble. My breath caught, but Elena’s cold, firm hand on my mouth held me silent. The air in the cramped space felt thin, reeking faintly of mothballs and cedar.
A muffled crackle came from somewhere beyond the door, followed by Marco’s voice, low and indistinguishable. Then, the rhythmic thump of his boots started again, moving away, growing fainter with each step.
Elena waited a beat, her gaze fixed on the sliver of light under the door. When the house was completely silent again, she released me, her fingers leaving faint red marks.
“Move,” she whispered, her voice a low command.
We slipped out of the closet and into the darkened foyer. The grand hallway, usually a display of polished marble and ornate fixtures, now felt like a deathtrap. Elena moved with an unnerving grace, not like a domestic worker, but like someone trained for this exact kind of silent movement.
She led me through the service corridors, past the empty kitchen with its gleaming, unused appliances, and out a rear pantry door that opened into the cold night air. The scent of damp earth and late-blooming jasmine filled my lungs, a stark contrast to the fear still tightening my chest.
We moved quickly through the shadows of my meticulously landscaped garden, keeping to the tree line. Three blocks away, a dark gray sedan sat idling, its engine a low hum in the quiet street. It was nondescript, the kind of car you’d never notice.
Elena opened the passenger door. “Get in.”
I slid onto the worn leather seat. The interior smelled faintly of stale coffee and something metallic I couldn’t place. Elena took the driver’s seat, pulling away from the curb smoothly, merging into the sparse Brooklyn traffic without a glance back at my estate.
“Alright,” I said, my voice rough. “What the hell is going on? Who are you, Elena?”
She glanced at me, her expression unreadable in the dim dashboard light. “My name is Elena Cruz. I’m not a full-time domestic worker, Mr. Moretti.”
My stomach clenched. “Then what are you?”
She took a slow breath, her knuckles white on the steering wheel. “I was placed in your household by Marcus Brody. He’s an investigative journalist for the New York Daily Wire.”
The words hit me like a physical blow. A journalist? In my home?
“Brody has been tracking waterfront real estate laundering for the past eight months,” she continued, her voice flat. “He’s been linking it to shell companies owned by Don Salvatore Falcone. I was his insider source.”
The world tilted. My quiet, observant maid, the woman who brought me coffee every morning, was an informant. And she was working against the very man who was now trying to have me killed. The betrayal I thought I saw in Marco’s eyes shifted, twisting into something far more complex, something I couldn’t yet grasp.
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