Forget Me Not_ The Mafia's Lost Queen

SELITHRA POV The gates swing open before I even reach the intercom. Two men in dark suits stand near the entrance, and they're not even trying to hide the guns under their jackets. I catalog that information without breaking stride, without letting my eyes linger too long, because I learned a long time ago that noticing too much can be just as dangerous as noticing too little. I already knew this wasn't a normal household when I applied online—the listing was vague, just maid needed, immediate hire, discretion required, no company name, no details, just a link to submit my information. I submitted it anyway because my savings account has two hundred dollars and rent is due in a week. The guards watch me approach, their faces blank and professional, and one of them speaks into a radio I can't see, his eyes never leaving me. "She's here," he says, quiet but clear. I pretend I don't hear it , like they've been expecting me specifically, not just a maid applicant but me, and I don't know why that would be true. The door opens before I reach it and a woman stands in the entrance, older, maybe early fifties, with steel-gray hair pulled into a bun so tight it looks painful. "Miss Selithra," she says, and her voice is crisp, no warmth but no hostility either. "I'm Isolde Krey, head housekeeper. Please, come in." I step inside and— Gunfire explodes through the air, so sudden and loud that my ears ring and my body moves before my brain catches up. Men in black pour through a side entrance I didn't even see, their faces covered, weapons raised, and they're shooting at the guards who were just standing calmly by the door. Glass shatters somewhere to my left, someone screams, and Isolde grabs my arm with surprising strength, trying to pull me back toward the entrance, but I can't move because I'm watching one of the suited guards go down, blood spreading across his white shirt, and my hands are shaking but my mind is suddenly, weirdly calm. One of the attackers swings his gun toward us and I don't think, I just move. I grab Isolde's wrist and yank her down behind a marble pillar as bullets chip away at the stone where we were just standing. My heart is hammering so hard I can feel it in my throat but my breathing is steady, controlled, like some part of me has done this before even though I know I haven't, I can't have, I'm nobody, I'm just a girl who needs a job. "Stay down," I tell Isolde. She stares at me with wide eyes, her face pale, and I realize she's not looking at the chaos around us—she's looking at me, at my face, like she's seeing something that terrifies her more than the men with guns. Another attacker rounds the pillar and I move on pure instinct, grabbing his wrist as he raises his weapon, twisting it in a way that makes him drop the gun with a choked sound of pain, and then I have the weapon in my hands and I don't know how I know what to do with it but I do—safety off, check the chamber, finger on the trigger guard not the trigger itself because that's how you get killed by your own carelessness. The thought comes from nowhere and everywhere at once. I point the gun at the man I just disarmed and he backs away, hands raised with his eyes wide behind his mask, and then someone tackles him from the side—one of the estate guards, bleeding but alive—and I'm moving again, staying low, keeping Isolde behind me as more gunfire erupts from somewhere deeper in the house. "This way," Isolde gasps, and she's pulling at my arm again, leading me through a doorway I didn't notice. We run and I keep the gun raised even though my hands are shaking now, the adrenaline starting to catch up with the calm that carried me through the first moments, and Isolde shoves open a heavy door that looks like it belongs in a bank vault. "Inside," she orders, and I stumble into a small windowless room with concrete walls and a single light overhead. She slams the door behind us and I hear locks engage, heavy mechanical sounds that make the silence after them feel even more oppressive. The gunfire is muffled now, distant, like it's happening in another world, and I finally lower the gun because my arms are trembling and I don't trust myself to hold it anymore. Isolde is staring at me again, her back against the door, her chest heaving as she tries to catch her breath, and her face has gone from pale to chalk-white. "Where did you learn to do that?" she whispers. "Do what?" My voice sounds strange to my own ears, too steady, too calm. "Fight like that. Move like that." Her eyes search my face, frantic, desperate. "Who sent you?" "I don't—nobody sent me, I just applied for a job, I don't know what's happening" "Don't lie to me," Isolde cuts me off, and her voice is shaking now, not with fear but with something else, something that sounds almost like grief. "I know that face. I've seen it every day for ten years in the portraits upstairs, I've cleaned her room for three years even though nobody goes in there, I've" She stops herself, pressing a hand over her mouth, and I realize she's crying, tears streaming down her face even though she's trying to hold them back. "You're supposed to be dead," she whispers through her fingers. "Everyone said you were dead." "I don't know what you're talking about," I say, and I mean it, I genuinely have no idea what she means, but she's looking at me like I'm a ghost and I don't understand why. "I'm just here for the interview, I need the job, that's all, I don't know who you think I am but" The gunfire stops. The silence that follows is somehow worse than the noise was, heavy and complete, and Isolde and I both freeze, listening, waiting. I can hear my own heartbeat in my ears, fast and hard, and the gun in my hand feels too heavy and too light at the same time. Footsteps in the corridor outside, deliberate and measured. Someone tries the door handle and my whole body tenses, the gun coming back up even though I don't remember deciding to raise it, and Isolde shrinks back against the wall, her eyes squeezed shut like she's praying. "Mrs. Krey." A man's voice, deep and controlled, speaking through the door. "The situation is contained. You can come out now." Isolde's eyes snap open and she lets out a breath that sounds like a sob. "Darius?" "Yes, ma'am. It's safe." She reaches for the locks with shaking hands, disengaging them one by one, and the door swings open to reveal a tall man in a dark suit, graying at the temples, with a scar cutting through his left eyebrow. He's got blood on his sleeve but he doesn't seem bothered by it, his expression calm and professional as he looks at Isolde and then at me. His eyes widen almost imperceptibly when he sees my face and I watch something like shock flash across his features before he controls it. "Miss," he says to me, his voice carefully neutral. "I'm going to need you to put the gun down." I look down at my hands and realize I'm still pointing it at him, my finger resting on the trigger guard exactly where it should be, and I lower it slowly, carefully, because some part of me knows that sudden movements around armed men get you killed. "Good," he says, and he holds out his hand. "May I?" I give him the gun and he takes it with the ease of someone who's handled a thousand weapons, checking it with quick efficient movements before securing it somewhere inside his jacket. "Are you hurt?" he asks me. "No." My voice is steadier than I feel. "What just happened?" "An unfortunate security incident," he says, which is clearly a lie or at least a massive understatement. "Nothing for you to worry about. Mrs. Krey, are you injured?" "No," Isolde whispers, but she's still staring at me like I'm something impossible. "Darius, you need to see her face, you need to look at her" "I see her, ma'am," Darius interrupts gently, and something in his tone makes me think he sees exactly what Isolde sees, whatever that is. "The boss is going to want to speak with her immediately." "The boss?" I repeat. "I'm supposed to interview with"