Chapter 2 - The Maid Had Another Name
Police sirens appeared in the distance six minutes later.
Beatrice became a maid again before the first cruiser reached the gates.
Not completely.
Enzo had seen too much.
But everyone else saw what she wanted them to see.
She changed back into the blue uniform. She hid the equipment from her basement room. She tied her hair beneath the white maid cap and lowered her shoulders.
Only her eyes remained different.
Enzo noticed.
He noticed everything about her now.
That irritated him.
For three years she had moved through his house like furniture. Now every movement seemed deliberate.
“How many identities do you have?” he asked.
They were alone in his private study after sunrise.
Beatrice closed the curtains.
“Enough.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the one you’re getting.”
Enzo poured himself whiskey.
His hand trembled slightly.
Beatrice noticed.
He noticed her noticing.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I almost died.”
“You almost died.”
Enzo drank.
“You saved me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Beatrice seemed genuinely confused by the question.
“You were going to die.”
“That usually isn’t enough reason in my world.”
“It is in mine.”
Enzo laughed once.
“You carry military equipment under your bed.”
“I said my world. I didn’t say it was a normal one.”
He studied her.
“Your last name.”
“No.”
“B.”
“Beatrice is fine.”
“You know everything about me.”
“That’s because you discuss criminal operations while I serve coffee.”
Enzo stared at her.
She stared back.
For the first time, neither pretended there was a hierarchy between them.
Finally Enzo placed the glass down.
“The symbol.”
Beatrice’s expression tightened.
“I worked overseas.”
“I figured that part out.”
“Private security.”
“Security guards don’t move like you.”
“Some do.”
“Not the ones guarding shopping malls.”
Beatrice crossed her arms.
Enzo noticed scars near her wrist.
He had never seen them.
Or perhaps he had simply never looked.
“What happened to your team?”
Beatrice froze.
That was answer enough.
Enzo stepped closer.
“You said the men last night were here for you.”
“I said they may have been.”
“No. You were certain.”
She walked toward the window.
Three years earlier, she had arrived in Chicago with no friends, no family, and a résumé constructed specifically to be boring.
Domestic work.
Hotel housekeeping.
Private estates.
She had chosen Moretti’s mansion for one reason: dangerous men rarely examined harmless people carefully.
The irony wasn’t lost on her.
She had hidden from one dangerous world inside another.
“My last operation went wrong,” she finally said.
“How wrong?”
“Six people entered.”
Enzo waited.
Beatrice’s eyes remained on the lawn.
“One came back.”
“You.”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
“That doesn’t sound like you.”
“It isn’t.”
That answer disturbed him more.
Someone knocked.
Leo entered.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“We found something.”
Leo placed a phone on the desk.
Recovered from one of the attackers.
Most of its data had been erased.
One photograph remained.
Enzo looked.
It showed Beatrice leaving a grocery store three weeks earlier.
Another image showed her standing near the estate gate.
Another showed her through the kitchen window.
Enzo’s eyes hardened.
“They were watching you.”
Beatrice swiped.
The final photograph stopped her.
A man sat inside a black sedan.
His face was partly reflected in the mirror.
Beatrice whispered, “No.”
Enzo looked at her.
“Who?”
She enlarged the photograph.
Her fingers trembled.
Enzo had never seen her hands tremble.
“His name is Daniel Voss.”
“Friend?”
“Once.”
“What does that mean?”
“He was on my team.”
Enzo looked from the photograph to Beatrice.
“You told me everyone died.”
“I thought they did.”
Leo quietly left.
Enzo waited until the door closed.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Beatrice sat.
For once, she looked tired.
Not physically.
Older somehow.
“The operation happened near Kandahar. We were contracted to escort intelligence personnel from a remote facility. Halfway through the extraction, our route changed.”
“Ambush?”
“Yes.”
“Gallagher?”
“No. Gallagher couldn’t find Kandahar on a map.”
Despite herself, Beatrice smiled faintly.
Then it disappeared.
“Someone sold our route.”
“Voss?”
“I never knew.”
“And now he’s in Chicago.”
“Yes.”
“Watching you.”
“Yes.”
Enzo paced.
“Then last night wasn’t a turf attack.”
“Gallagher may still be involved.”
“How?”
“Money.”
“Everyone has a price.”
“Exactly.”
Enzo stopped.
“You’re leaving.”
It wasn’t a question.
Beatrice stood.
“I should.”
“No.”
She looked at him.
Enzo’s expression hardened.
“Someone attacked my house.”
“For me.”
“My house.”
“Your ego survived. Congratulations.”
“Four of my men didn’t.”
Silence.
That struck differently.
Enzo continued.
“I need answers.”
“So do I.”
“Then we get them together.”
Beatrice laughed.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re a Chicago crime boss who thinks expensive suits qualify as body armor.”
“You’ve been insulting me more since you started carrying a rifle.”
“I’ve been insulting you silently for three years.”
That surprised a laugh from him.
A real one.
Beatrice stared.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re smiling.”
“So?”
“It’s unsettling.”
His smile vanished.
“Better?”
“Much.”
For several seconds, something unfamiliar existed between them.
Not employer and employee.
Not boss and maid.
Two people who had nearly died together.
Then Beatrice’s phone rang.
Nobody had that number.
Her expression immediately changed.
She answered.
Silence.
Then a man’s voice.
“Hello, Bea.”
Her face drained.
Enzo could hear only fragments.
“You got heavier.”
Beatrice’s jaw tightened.
“Voss.”
“I wondered whether you’d recognize the symbol.”
“What do you want?”
“The same thing we wanted three years ago.”
“We?”
Enzo watched her.
Voss laughed softly.
“You still think Kandahar was an accident.”
Beatrice said nothing.
“It wasn’t.”
“Where are you?”
“Close.”
“What do you want?”
“Come alone and I’ll tell you why your team died.”
“Where?”
“Not yet.”
The line went quiet.
Then Voss said something that changed her face completely.
“Ask Moretti what his father was doing in Afghanistan in 2019.”
Click.
The call ended.
Beatrice slowly lowered the phone.
Enzo had stopped breathing normally.
She turned.
“What was your father doing in Afghanistan?”
“My father never went to Afghanistan.”
“Voss thinks differently.”
“He’s lying.”
“Maybe.”
Enzo stepped closer.
“My father died five years ago.”
“When?”
Enzo gave her the date.
Beatrice went still.
That date.
She knew it.
She knew it because she had spent years trying to forget it.
Her team had been ambushed the following morning.
Enzo saw recognition in her face.
“What?”
Beatrice whispered:
“Your father died twenty-four hours before my team was betrayed.”
May you like
And for the first time, Lorenzo Moretti wondered whether the maid had entered his house by accident at all.
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