Chapter 1 - The Weight of a Name
The silence in the grand kitchen stretched so tight I could hear the faint, steady hiss of the gas burner beneath the cast-iron skillet. I kept my hands resting firmly on the wooden counter, my knuckles white against the grain.
"Elena," I said, my voice dropping into a steady, defensive cadence. "Her name was Elena Carter. Why?"
None of them moved. For a house that usually felt like a war zone populated by restless ghosts, the sudden stillness was terrifying. Declan shifted his weight, his broad shoulders tensing as he looked from Roman to Gabriel. The aggressive edge that usually clung to him like cheap cologne had entirely vanished, replaced by an unsettling, watchful blankness.
Gabriel wasn't smiling anymore. The sharp, mocking curl of his lips was gone, his gaze fixed on my face with an intensity that felt less like a threat and more like an interrogation.
Roman didn't blink. He took two slow steps forward, the polished leather of his shoes clicking against the tile floor. He stopped just a few feet away from me, close enough that I could smell the faint trace of sandalwood and expensive scotch.
"Where was she from?" Roman asked. His voice was lower now, stripped of its corporate authority. It sounded raw, almost fragile.
"Boston," I replied, frowning as I stepped back. "Look, Mr. Falcone, if my cooking violates some ridiculous rule in this mausoleum, just say so. Take it out of my hourly rate. But I don't see what my mother's hometown has to do with breakfast."
"Boston," Roman repeated, the word tasting like ash in his mouth. He turned his head slightly, locking eyes with Declan. "She said Boston."
"She doesn't know," Declan muttered, shaking his head. "She couldn't."
"Know what?" I snapped, my frustration finally piercing through my fear. I untied my apron and tossed it onto the counter. "What game are you three playing? Is this part of the forty-eight-hour hazing ritual? Do you check every maid's family tree to see if we're worthy of scrubbing your baseboards? Because if you want me gone, you don't need a history lesson. Just hand me my back pay and I'll walk out those gates right now in the rain."
Gabriel let out a short, humorless breath that sounded like a dry cough. "She has Elena's temper, too. God help us."
"Quiet, Gabriel," Roman ordered sharply, though his eyes never left mine. He reached into his suit jacket, not for a weapon, but for a leather-bound notebook. He flipped it open to a thick, yellowed page that looked decades old. He didn't show it to me, but I saw the corner of a faded photograph tucked inside the sleeve. "Your mother died five years ago. November. A sudden aneurysm."
My breath caught in my throat. The anger evaporated, replaced by a cold, sharp shock. "How do you know that?"
"Because," Roman said quietly, "she shouldn't have been in Boston. Twenty-five years ago, Elena vanished from this house without a trace, leaving behind a locked door, an empty jewelry box, and a family that spent a decade tearing itself apart looking for her."
The kitchen seemed to tilt sideways. The smell of bacon and frying potatoes suddenly turned sickeningly sweet. I stared at Roman, looking for the telltale smirk of a sadistic lie, but his face was an absolute mask of pain and certainty.
"You're insane," I whispered. "My mother grew up in a cramped apartment in South Boston. She worked three jobs. She never lived in a mansion. She didn't even own a passport."
"She didn't need one," Gabriel said softly, leaning against the doorframe. "This house isn't in Boston, Maeve. It's on the coast of Maine. But twenty-five years ago, before our father died and before this place became a fortress, Elena was supposed to marry into the family that ran half of it."
"No," I said, backing away until my spine hit the pantry door. "No. My mother was a nobody. She raised me alone. She told me my father died before I was born."
Roman closed the notebook with a sharp snap that made me jump. He stepped closer, his expression softening into something devastatingly earnest.
May you like
"Your father didn't die, Maeve," Roman said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "And you aren't here by accident. The agency didn't send you. You chose us because somewhere in your blood, you knew the way home."
---
