Chapter 2 - THE SHOCKING NEW RULE
Khloe woke slowly, rising through the heavy depths of a fever dream. Her body felt incredibly warm. For a moment, she thought she was back in her childhood bed, safe and oblivious. Then her senses began to return.
The mattress beneath her was too firm and too expensive. The sheets were heavy cotton rather than the cheap polyester blend she owned. The air smelled of smoke, cedar, and gunpowder.
Her eyes opened. She was staring at a dark gray wall. Panic flooded her veins, cold and immediate. She remembered the fever. The duvet. Lying down for only a second.
Oh God.
She scrambled backward, tangling her legs in the thick blanket as she tried to escape the bed. Her heel struck something solid. Something warm.
Khloe froze. The blood drained from her face. Slowly, she turned her head.
Victor Russo lay beside her, propped on one elbow. He was still fully dressed in a wrinkled button-down shirt, his dark hair disordered. He was not asleep. He was watching her. His sharp gray eyes followed every trace of her panic.
Khloe stopped breathing. She was dead. She was actually going to die there, shot in the head for sleeping in a mafia boss’s bed.
“I’m sorry,” she stammered, her voice reduced to a rasp. She scrambled over the edge of the bed. Her stockinged feet hit the floor, but her knees nearly gave way. She caught herself against the nightstand. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to. I was just—I was sick. I was dizzy. I just sat down. I swear to God, Mr. Russo, I’ll leave right now. You don’t have to pay me for this week. I’ll pack my things.”
She was hyperventilating as she backed toward the door.
“Stop moving.”
Victor did not raise his voice, but the command struck her like a wall. Khloe stopped.
He sat up slowly and rolled his shoulders. He did not look angry. He looked completely indifferent, which was somehow worse. Victor swung his legs over the side of the bed and studied her small, trembling frame.
“You have a fever.” It was not a question.
“I—yes, but I’m fine. I’m leaving.”
“You were shaking half the night,” Victor said conversationally, as though they were discussing the weather. “You kept pulling the duvet.”
Khloe stared at him.
“You drool, by the way.”
Her face turned a violent crimson. “I—what?”
“You drool.”
Victor stood. He was easily more than six feet tall, broad-shouldered and imposing. His presence seemed to remove the oxygen from the room. He crossed to the small wet bar, picked up a glass, and poured water from a pitcher. Then he returned and held it out to her.
Khloe stared at the glass. For one irrational moment, she wondered whether it was poisoned.
“Take the water, Bennett. I’m not going to shoot you for taking a nap.”
Her hand shook as she reached for it. Their fingers brushed, and Khloe flinched, but his skin was warm and his grip steady. She drank the entire glass because her throat felt like sandpaper, half expecting to collapse dead onto the carpet.
“Why didn’t you wake me up?” she asked quietly before common sense could stop her. “Why didn’t you have me thrown out?”
Victor looked at her. This time, he really looked. He saw the dark shadows under her eyes, the worn edges of her inexpensive uniform, and the desperate expression of a trapped animal. She was not an assassin. She was not a spy. She was simply a broken person trying to survive.
Victor recognized the expression. He saw it in the mirror every morning.
“I was tired,” he said. “You were quiet. It seemed like too much effort.”
It was a lie. Half a dozen men downstairs could have removed her in thirty seconds. Victor did not want to examine why he had allowed her to remain, or why the sound of her breathing had anchored him in a way sleeping pills never had.
“Get your shoes,” he ordered as he turned toward his closet. “Go down to the kitchen. Tell Mrs. Gable to give you the day off.”
“Paid?” Khloe stared at his back. “She’ll fire me.”
“She won’t,” Victor said, his voice returning to its cold, authoritative register. “Because you’re going to tell her that from now on, you are the only person permitted to clean this suite. No one else comes in here. Just you.”
Khloe hurried into her shoes, her mind reeling. She had survived. She still had her job. But as she hurried through the heavy oak door and looked back once at the ruthless mafia boss standing in the middle of the room, she understood something far more frightening. She had not simply kept her job. She had become something Victor Russo noticed. In his world, that was infinitely more dangerous than being fired.
Downstairs, the kitchen was already alive with morning activity. Pots clattered, and the smell of dark coffee filled the air. Mrs. Gable stood by the stainless-steel counter, reviewing a clipboard. When she saw Khloe enter, her expression darkened into a scowl.
“Where have you been, Bennett? You were assigned to the East Wing hours ago. The master suite should have been done before dawn.”
Khloe swallowed hard, trying to keep her hands from shaking. “Mr. Russo spoke to me.”
Mrs. Gable paused, her pen hovering over the clipboard. The room seemed to drop three degrees. “He spoke to you?”
“Yes. He told me to tell you... that I am taking the day off. And that from now on, I am the only maid allowed in the East Wing master suite.”
Mrs. Gable stared at her for five long seconds. Her wooden mask crumbled slightly, revealing pure shock. In all her years working for the Russo family, she had never heard of Victor Russo singling out a member of the domestic staff—let alone a young, temporary maid.
“You didn’t touch anything you shouldn’t have, did you?” Mrs. Gable demanded in a harsh whisper, stepping closer. “If you crossed a line, girl—”
“I didn't,” Khloe lied smoothly, though her pulse hammered against her ribs. “I just cleaned. He was there. He gave the order.”
Mrs. Gable narrowed her eyes, searching Khloe’s face for deceit. Finding none, she adjusted her collar and straightened her back. “Very well. If those are Mr. Russo’s orders, you will obey them to the letter. Take the rest of today to recover. But tomorrow, you report directly to his suite at 0600 sharp. Do not be late.”
May you like
“Thank you, Mrs. Gable.”
Khloe slipped out the service door into the biting morning air. As she walked to the bus stop, the freezing wind bit into her cheeks, but her mind was burning. She had survived the night in the bed of the city’s most feared man. She had secured her paycheck for Tommy’s treatment. But as she watched the grey skyline of Chicago blur through the frosted window of the bus, she couldn't escape the memory of Victor’s slate-grey eyes—or the terrifying realization that her quiet, invisible life had just come to an end.
