Chapter 1 - The Wrong Door
Three things could supposedly get me fired from Adrian Voss’s mansion: stealing, lying, or entering one of his private meetings without permission.
Nobody mentioned bursting through the wrong door soaking wet, carrying a mop like a weapon, missing one shoe, and falling straight into the arms of Chicago’s most feared mafia boss.
But apparently I was about to test that rule myself.
My name is Maya Bennett, and at 7:43 on Thursday evening, my career was exactly eleven days old.
Five minutes earlier, my greatest enemy had been a bathroom pipe.
It exploded beneath the sink in a second-floor guest suite, blasting freezing water across my uniform.
“Oh, absolutely not.”
The pipe sprayed me directly in the face.
I stared at it.
The pipe continued spraying.
“Fine,” I muttered. “Violence.”
I threw towels over it, but they surrendered immediately. By the time I found the emergency shutoff, my curls were dripping, my pink blouse clung to my shoulders, and one shoe contained enough water to qualify as a swimming pool.
Eleven days at Adrian’s Lake Forest estate had already taught me two things.
Rich people owned too many bathrooms.
And everything inside this mansion cost more than my entire future.
The marble was imported.
The rugs had names.
The paintings had insurance policies.
My checking account had anxiety.
When water started creeping toward the hallway, I grabbed a mop, bucket, and towels before rushing downstairs for the west-corridor supply closet.
Unfortunately, Adrian Voss’s mansion seemed designed specifically to humiliate new employees.
There were three staircases, two kitchens, four sitting rooms, a library bigger than my childhood apartment, and hallways that appeared to reproduce whenever nobody was looking.
After two wrong turns, I found a pair of dark walnut doors.
“Please be cleaning supplies.”
I pushed one open.
Eight men in dark suits sat around a long polished table covered with maps, photographs, files, tablets, and facedown phones.
Every conversation stopped.
Nobody moved.
Then I saw the man sitting at the head of the table.
Adrian Voss.
Thirty-eight years old.
Owner of legitimate logistics companies, restaurants, commercial properties, warehouses, and enough real estate to make normal people question their life choices.
More importantly, according to the whispered warnings among the household staff, he was the man whose name people across Chicago apparently knew better than to say too loudly.
I had seen Adrian only three times since being hired.
Once crossing the foyer.
Once getting into a black SUV.
And once standing beside the lake at six in the morning while speaking quietly into a phone.
He had never spoken to me.
I was fairly certain he had never even looked at me.
Now his dark eyes settled directly on mine.
This was my opportunity to apologize professionally.
Instead, I said, “Please tell me one of you keeps towels in here.”
Silence.
Adrian leaned back slightly.
“What happened?”
“Upstairs bathroom.”
He waited.
“The pipe burst.”
Still nothing.
I lifted the mop.
“I objected.”
The man beside Adrian made a choking sound.
“The pipe did not respect my authority.”
His shoulders started shaking.
Adrian glanced at him.
Suddenly the man became deeply fascinated by the documents in front of him.
“Thank you,” I told him.
He blinked. “For what?”
“For proving I’m not the only person in here making terrible decisions.”
Somebody coughed.
I took one careful step backward.
My remaining wet shoe slipped.
“Oh—”
The bucket flew sideways.
Water splashed across the polished marble floor.
I reached instinctively for the nearest solid object.
Unfortunately, that object was Adrian Voss.
He moved faster than I expected.
One second I was falling.
The next, his arm locked securely around my waist.
My palms landed against his chest.
My mop hit the floor.
And suddenly my face was inches from the most dangerous man I had ever met.
Nobody breathed.
I could smell cedar and expensive cologne.
His eyes were darker up close.
Not angry.
Not exactly.
They were assessing me.
As though he were trying to decide whether my arrival had truly been an accident.
“I’m going to make a suggestion,” I whispered.
His eyebrow moved slightly.
“We pretend the last six seconds never happened.”
Behind us, someone made another strangled noise.
Adrian looked past my shoulder.
“Leave.”
Eight chairs moved almost simultaneously.
“Adrian,” one man began.
“Now.”
That single word changed the atmosphere.
The amusement disappeared.
Men gathered files.
Tablets vanished.
Folders closed.
Within seconds, the walnut doors shut behind the last man.
I suddenly became aware of three things.
Adrian still had one arm around my waist.
My hand was still resting against his chest.
And one photograph remained uncovered on the table.
I only saw it for perhaps half a second.
A woman.
Dark hair.
Young.
Standing beside a car.
Something about her face felt strangely familiar.
Adrian noticed where I was looking.
His expression changed.
The faint humor disappeared.
He steadied me on my feet and released me.
“You have no idea what meeting you just interrupted.”
I swallowed.
“I’m guessing it wasn’t about plumbing.”
His eyes remained on mine.
“No, Maya.”
My heart stopped.
Maya.
Not miss.
Not you.
Maya.
I had never introduced myself to Adrian Voss.
I had completed my employment paperwork with Mrs. Callahan, the estate manager. I worked mostly in the guest wing. Adrian had never asked my name.
At least not in front of me.
I slowly bent down for my mop.
“How do you know my name?”
Adrian didn’t answer.
Instead, he reached for the photograph.
I caught another glimpse before he turned it facedown.
That was enough.
The woman looked like me.
Not exactly.
Her hair was shorter. Her clothes belonged to another decade. She was probably in her twenties.
But there was something in her eyes.
Something around the mouth.
I forgot about the water.
“Who is she?”
Adrian placed his palm over the photograph.
“You need to go upstairs.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
His gaze sharpened.
Most people probably stopped speaking when Adrian Voss looked at them like that.
Unfortunately, nervousness had always destroyed my survival instincts.
“You knew my name,” I continued. “You have a photograph of someone who looks like me, and apparently eight men were discussing her behind locked doors. I think I’ve earned one question.”
“You entered a private room.”
“Accidentally.”
“You saw something confidential.”
“Also accidentally.”
“You’re arguing with your employer.”
“That part is intentional.”
For one extraordinary second, something almost resembling amusement touched his eyes.
Then it vanished.
“Mrs. Callahan will handle the bathroom.”
“I can handle it.”
“You’re soaked.”
“I noticed.”
“Maya.”
There it was again.
My name sounded different when he said it.
“Go change.”
I hesitated.
“Am I fired?”
“No.”
That surprised me more than everything else.
“Why?”
His expression became unreadable.
“Because you didn’t open that door by accident.”
Cold traveled down my spine.
“What?”
He walked toward the walnut doors.
I stepped in front of him.
“I absolutely did.”
“I know.”
“You just said—”
“I said you didn’t open that door by accident.”
“That is literally the opposite of—”
“The supply closet was moved this afternoon.”
I stared.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“The sign identifying this room as a private conference room was removed.”
I looked toward the door.
There was no plaque.
No PRIVATE sign.
Nothing.
Adrian continued.
“The hallway camera outside this room stopped functioning twenty-three minutes before you arrived.”
My fingers tightened around the mop.
“That wasn’t me.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Because you were upstairs fighting a bathroom pipe.”
Despite myself, I blinked.
“You checked?”
“I knew where you were before you entered this room.”
That answer did nothing to improve the situation.
“Why?”
Adrian looked at me for several seconds.
“Because somebody wanted you to come through that door tonight.”
My mouth went dry.
“That makes no sense.”
“It will.”
“When?”
“When I know who arranged it.”
I looked toward the photograph.
“And her?”
His jaw tightened.
“Go upstairs, Maya.”
I hated being ordered around.
I hated unanswered questions more.
But something in Adrian’s expression told me the conversation had reached its limit.
I picked up the bucket.
He took it from my hand.
“I can carry a bucket.”
“I can see that.”
“Then why—”
“Because the floor is wet and you have one shoe.”
I looked down.
Fair point.
He opened the door.
The hallway was empty.
I walked toward the staircase, then stopped.
“Mr. Voss?”
“Adrian.”
That caught me off guard.
I turned.
He stood beneath the warm hallway light, holding my gray cleaning bucket like it had personally offended him.
“What was that meeting about?”
His face changed again.
Not anger.
Something closer to concern.
“You.”
I laughed automatically.
He didn’t.
My smile disappeared.
“You’re serious.”
“Yes.”
“Why would eight men be having a meeting about a housekeeper who has worked here eleven days?”
Adrian looked toward the closed conference-room doors.
“Because eleven days ago, you walked into my house using a name I hadn’t heard in eighteen years.”
“Bennett?”
His silence answered me.
My stomach tightened.
“My father’s name.”
“I know.”
I stepped toward him.
“How?”
Before Adrian could answer, footsteps approached.
Mrs. Callahan appeared at the end of the hallway.
She was normally impossible to surprise.
Tonight, her face went completely pale when she saw us.
“Maya.”
Her voice sounded wrong.
Adrian immediately noticed.
“What happened?”
Mrs. Callahan looked at him.
Then at me.
“A package arrived at the front gate.”
“For whom?”
Her eyes stayed on mine.
“Maya.”
I frowned.
“Nobody knows I work here.”
Adrian became perfectly still.
“Where is it?”
“Security has it.”
“What kind of package?”
Mrs. Callahan swallowed.
“An envelope.”
She hesitated.
“And a photograph.”
The air seemed to disappear from the hallway.
Adrian’s voice lowered.
“What photograph?”
Mrs. Callahan looked at me with an expression I couldn’t understand.
“A photograph of Maya’s father.”
My heart slammed against my ribs.
“My father died eighteen years ago.”
Mrs. Callahan said nothing.
Adrian’s face became colder.
I whispered, “What else was in the envelope?”
She took a breath.
“A note.”
“What does it say?”
Mrs. Callahan looked at Adrian as if asking permission.
He nodded.
She finally answered.
“Tell Adrian Voss that Daniel Bennett’s daughter has come home.”
And suddenly I understood something terrifying.
May you like
I hadn’t accidentally found Adrian Voss.
Someone had spent eighteen years waiting for me to find him.
