Chapter 3 - The Invisible Guard
The "promotion" was a farce, of course. I was still a maid. I still polished silver, scrubbed floors, and changed linens. But the rules had changed. I was now the eyes and ears of the most dangerous man in Chicago.
For the next two weeks, the house felt like a powder keg. I watched the staff—the chefs, the gardeners, the security detail. I noticed Norah, the assistant house manager, lingering near the medication cart for seconds too long. I saw the way the cook, Marco, handled the food trays, always checking the kitchen security cameras before adding a single pinch of salt.
Emma became the perfect cover. No one suspected a maid’s toddler of being a spy. She wandered the halls with her rabbit, she sat in the gardens, she crawled under tables in the dining hall while the "inner circle" met to discuss the "inevitable" decline of the Moretti dynasty.
She told me things.
"The lady with the sharp voice puts the white powder in the tea," Emma told me while I was brushing her hair.
"Which lady, baby?"
"The one who smells like fancy flowers. She put it in the cup before she took it to the big man."
Norah.
I went to the west wing, my heart hammering against my chest. Alessandro was working, but he stopped the moment I entered.
"Norah," I said, my voice shaking. "She’s the one. She’s adding something to your afternoon tea."
Alessandro didn't show shock. He simply opened a desk drawer and pulled out a small, high-definition camera. "I needed confirmation. I have been playing the part of the dying king, but the queen is getting impatient."
He looked at me, a strange light in his eyes. "You have done well, Ms. Miller. Better than the men I pay ten thousand dollars a month to protect me."
"What are you going to do?"
"I am going to host a dinner," he said. "A dinner where the wine will be very expensive, and the consequences will be final. And you, Ms. Miller, are going to ensure that my little protector is nowhere near the house."
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"I won't leave you in danger."
"I am the danger," he said, his voice echoing in the vast room. "That is the mistake they made. They forgot that even when I cannot walk, I can still hunt."
