THE MAFIA'S FAVORITE MAID

CHAPTER 3

I woke before the sun.

The small alarm clock on the nightstand buzzed once, and I silenced it quickly so I would not disturb the other girls sleeping down the hall. For a moment I lay still, staring at the plain ceiling, letting the unfamiliar quiet of the estate settle around me. No traffic. No shouting from the street below the laundry. Just the soft sound of rain that had not yet stopped.

I washed my face with cold water, pulled on the black uniform, and pinned my hair neatly at the back of my neck the way Mrs. Lang preferred. The mirror above the small sink showed the same tired girl I had become used to seeing—pale, thin, eyes that still carried the weight of too many long nights. I looked away and left the room.

The servants’ kitchen was already busy. Coffee was brewing. Bread was being sliced. Mrs. Lang handed me a list without comment: polish the silver in the formal dining room, dust the lower hallway, then help with the morning trays for the east wing. I nodded and got to work.

I liked the quiet tasks. They gave my hands something to do and left my mind free to count the days until Friday, when I would see Tyler again and place another envelope in his hands. The thought still steadied me. As long as I kept working, as long as I kept giving, everything would be all right.

I carried the silver into the dining room and laid it out on a long cloth. Piece by piece I polished each fork, each knife, each spoon until the metal shone. The house was still mostly asleep. Only the soft footsteps of other staff moved through distant corridors.

I did not notice when the door at the far end of the room opened.

I kept my head down, focused on the tarnished edge of a serving spoon, rubbing the cloth in careful circles. The air shifted slightly—someone had entered—but I had been told never to look up unless spoken to. So I did not look up.

A tall figure walked the length of the table, pausing near the head of it. I felt the weight of a gaze for only a second, light as a breath, before it moved on. Shoes whispered across the polished floor. A quiet conversation took place in the doorway with someone I could not see. Then the footsteps left again.

I never raised my eyes.

When the silver was finished I moved to the lower hallway with a soft cloth and a bottle of polish. I worked methodically, wiping every frame, every small table, every edge of the long runner. At one point I knelt to reach the base of a heavy cabinet. My knees pressed against the cold floor. My shoulders ached from the previous day’s work, but I ignored it.

Again I felt it—something watching.

I straightened slowly and continued dusting, careful not to turn around. Whatever it was passed. A door closed somewhere farther down the corridor. The feeling faded.

By mid-morning I was carrying a tray of coffee and fresh fruit toward the east wing, exactly as instructed. The hallway there was quieter, lined with tall windows that let in the gray light of the rainy day. I kept my steps even and my eyes fixed on the path ahead.

I did not see the man standing just inside the open door of a study.

I only felt the brief pause in the air, the same strange weight of attention I had felt twice already that morning. It lasted no longer than a heartbeat. Then I continued past, tray steady in my hands, completely unaware that Dante Moretti’s dark eyes had followed me for those few quiet seconds before he turned back to the papers on his desk.

To me, the day was ordinary.

I finished the tray delivery. I returned to the kitchen. I helped prepare the midday meal and cleaned until my fingers were raw. In the late afternoon I sat for a short break in the servants’ sitting room and counted the small amount of cash I had managed to set aside so far. It was not much, but it was something. Tyler would be pleased.

When evening came I served again in the formal dining room, eyes lowered, movements careful. The man at the head of the table spoke only to his guests. He never addressed me. He never looked directly at me when I was near enough to notice.

Or so I believed.

That night, alone in my narrow bed, I stared at the ceiling once more and whispered the same quiet promise I had made every night since leaving college.

Just a little longer. Keep working. Keep giving. Everything will be all right.

I closed my eyes, unaware that somewhere in the large, silent house, a man who rarely noticed the people who served him had already begun to notice me.