I Faked My Death, I Infiltrate His Manor

Chapter 2: The Fatal Familiarity

The metallic click of the hammer c*****g echoed like a thunderclap in the suffocating silence of the bedroom. The cold steel of the 1911 pistol dug a sharp crescent into the skin between my eyebrows.

"Give me one good reason," Lucas repeated, his thumb ghosting over the trigger. His chest heaved, the bloody white wedding gown still clutched in his left hand.

Cold sweat slid down my temple, stinging my eye, but I forced myself not to blink. If he saw the cold, calculating glare of the Russo heir, he would pull the trigger without hesitation. I had to be Elena. I had to be the broken, terrified mute maid.

I let out a strangled, pathetic gasp. My knees buckled intentionally, and I collapsed onto the thick Persian rug. The heavy silver tray I was holding clattered against the floorboards, the crystal glass tipping over and spilling warm milk across the polished wood. A small white pill bottle rolled right to the tip of Lucas’s bare foot.

I kept my head bowed, my shoulders shaking violently as I pointed a trembling, scarred finger at the spilled painkillers and milk. I buried my face in my hands, letting out a silent, breathless sob, curling into a ball of utter submission.

Lucas’s feral gaze flicked from my cowering form to the spilled tray. The heavy silence stretched, taut as a wire about to snap.

I listened to the ragged, uneven rhythm of his breathing. This wasn't the breathing of a cold-blooded tactician. It was the erratic panting of a man pushed to the absolute edge of his sanity.

Slowly, agonizingly, the pressure of the gun barrel left my forehead.

"Get out," he commanded. His voice was no longer a roar, but a harsh, gravelly whisper that sounded like it had been scraped over broken glass.

I didn't wait for a second invitation. I scrambled to my feet, keeping my eyes glued to the floor, and bolted for the heavy oak doors. I didn't stop running until I had locked myself inside my cramped, windowless servant’s quarters in the basement.

I leaned my back against the flimsy wooden door and slid to the floor. My hands were shaking so violently I couldn't unbutton my uniform collar. I had survived. But the image of Lucas Coppola—the ruthless butcher of the East Coast—clinging to my bloody wedding dress like a lifeline burned itself into the back of my eyelids.

The next three days were a psychological minefield. The near-death experience should have been my cue to lay low, but fate had a twisted sense of humor. The head housekeeper, a severe woman named Mrs. Rossi, assigned me to the Don’s private study.

"He fired the last three girls for making too much noise," Mrs. Rossi had muttered, shoving a fresh cleaning caddy into my hands. "You’re a mute. You’re perfect. Just clean the ashes, serve his drinks, and pretend you don’t exist."

Lucas had essentially barricaded himself in the mahogany-paneled study. The air inside was thick with cigar smoke and the heavy scent of premium liquor. He sat behind his massive desk, surrounded by sprawling blueprints and scattered dossiers, looking more like a besieged warlord than a victorious king.

"Pour," he ordered one evening, not bothering to look up from a document marked with the insignia of the Russian Bratva.

I set my cleaning rags aside and approached the antique bar cart. My eyes briefly scanned the room for any sign of Antonio's encrypted ledger, but the desk was too cluttered. I picked up the heavy crystal decanter of aged bourbon and stepped up to the edge of his desk.

I poured the amber liquid into his heavy tumbler.

Then, without thinking—relying entirely on muscle memory honed over a decade of hosting high-society Mafia galas—I tapped the neck of the decanter twice against the rim of the glass.

Clink. Clink.

It was a highly specific, neurotic habit I had developed years ago to prevent a single drop of liquor from staining the tablecloth. A signature move of Veronica Russo.

The second the crystal chimed, Lucas froze.

The pen in his hand snapped in half. Ink splattered across the Bratva document.

Before I could even register my fatal mistake, Lucas’s hand shot across the desk like lightning. His massive fingers clamped around my wrist with the force of an industrial vice.

The decanter slipped from my suddenly numb fingers. It hit the floor, shattering into a dozen jagged pieces. Bourbon splashed across my cheap leather shoes, but I didn't feel it. I only felt the agonizing pressure on my radius bone as Lucas yanked me violently forward.

My stomach slammed against the edge of the mahogany desk. I was suddenly inches from his face.

"Where did you learn to pour like that?" he demanded. The dead, empty look in his eyes was gone, replaced by a frantic, terrifying intensity. His pupils were blown wide.

I widened my eyes in feigned terror, letting out a panicked gasp. I squirmed, pulling back with all my meager strength, but he was an immovable wall of muscle. With my free hand, I pointed frantically to my throat, silently begging him to remember I was just a mute, terrified maid.

"Look at me!" he roared, his voice rattling the glass panes of the study windows.

As I struggled, thrashing backward to escape his crushing grip, the cheap, poorly tailored sleeve of my maid’s uniform rode up my forearm.

The harsh overhead light illuminated the jagged, ugly, angry red burn scar that crawled from my wrist up to my elbow—the permanent signature of the warehouse explosion that had supposedly killed me.

Lucas’s breath hitched. It was a sharp, violent sound, as if all the oxygen had suddenly been sucked out of the room.

His dark, manic eyes locked onto the scarred flesh. The tyrannical, untouchable mask of Don Coppola fractured completely, revealing a man staring at a ghost he desperately, hopelessly wanted to be real.