Chapter 1 - Shadows in the Marble|
A heavy metallic click echoed through the industrial kitchen as the deadbolt engaged, sealing in the dead air and trapping the breath inside Fay Miller’s lungs.
Earlier that night, she had been curled on the wet linoleum floor, clutching a bruised jaw and convinced that termination was imminent, if not something infinitely worse. She was only a maid who scrubbed floors for a criminal empire, a nameless shadow drifting through hall after hall. Yet instead of silencing her or turning a blind eye, the most dangerous man in the city had ruined the immaculate knees of his bespoke suit by crouching beside her in dirty water and staring at her with dark, unreadable eyes.
"Give me a name."
There was a golden rule when you worked for the Cross family.
Be a ghost.
Do not make eye contact. Do not speak unless spoken to. When men in tailored suits gathered in drawing rooms to discuss shipping containers and sudden disappearances, you became part of the wallpaper, no different from the absurdly expensive crystal chandeliers or the Persian rugs that absorbed blood entirely too well.
Fay had always been good at being a ghost. For three long years, she had perfected the art of absolute invisibility. She cleaned the sprawling Gothic monstrosity of the Cross estate, collected her exorbitant paycheck on the first of every month, and kept her head down. She needed the money. Her mother’s medical bills were not going to pay themselves, and ordinary housekeeping wages did not cover experimental oncology treatments.
Working for Vincent Cross did.
Vincent was less a man than an atmosphere. When he entered a room, the air pressure seemed to drop. Conversations died instantly. He had inherited the syndicate from his father, but where the old man had been loud and boisterously violent, Vincent operated like a scalpel. He did not yell. He did not need to. At thirty-two, he was sharply built and moved with the quiet, devastating grace of a man who owned everything he looked at.
May you like
Fay had spoken to him exactly twice in three years. Both times, she had said only, "Yes, sir."
That had been the full extent of their worlds crossing—until tonight.
