Chapter 2 - The Lockdown
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The heavy oak doors of the master study clicked shut, and the unmistakable sound of an electronic deadbolt engaging echoed through the massive room.
Naomi flinched. She pulled Zuri tighter against her chest, her breathing turning shallow and frantic. She had spent the last three years keeping her head down, scrubbing marble floors, and remaining entirely invisible. Now, she was trapped in a soundproof room with a billionaire whose reputation for ruthlessness was legendary in the city’s underground.
“Sit down,” Damon ordered, gesturing toward the plush velvet sofa near the fireplace.
“Mr. Ashford, I swear to you, I have no idea what is going on,” Naomi pleaded, reluctantly moving toward the sofa and sitting on the very edge of the cushions.
Damon walked around his desk, leaning his tall, imposing frame against the polished mahogany. He studied the maid. She was thirty-two, unassuming, and fiercely protective of the child in her arms. According to her employee file, she was a single mother from Queens who had practically begged the estate manager for this job.
“Zuri,” Damon said, his voice softening slightly as he addressed the toddler. “Who is the sad lady?”
Zuri looked up from her mother’s shoulder.
“She wears a white dress,” Zuri explained matter-of-factly. “She smells like vanilla. And she cries because the bad man took her away.”
Damon’s heart slammed against his ribs. Elena had been wearing a white silk dress on the night she was poisoned. And her signature perfume, a custom blend imported from France, was heavy with vanilla.
“Did she tell you who the bad man was?” Damon asked, his hands gripping the edge of the desk so tightly his knuckles turned white.
“No,” Zuri frowned, playing with a stray curl of her own hair. “But she said the bad man has a snake on his hand.”
The air left Damon’s lungs.
A snake on his hand.
His half-brother, Silas, had a coiled serpent tattooed across the webbing of his right hand. Silas, who had been out of the country when Elena died. Silas, who had smoothly stepped in to manage the international shipping routes of the Ashford empire while Damon mourned.
“Naomi,” Damon said, turning his piercing gray eyes back to the trembling maid. “How long have you worked here?”
“Four months, sir,” she whispered.
“And where were you three years ago, in November?”
May you like
Naomi’s face drained of all color. She looked away, her silence screaming louder than any confession.
“I asked you a question,” Damon demanded.
