The Maid Who Refused to Fear Him

Two years after a sniper's bullet destroyed my legs, everyone inside the Moretti estate had learned the same rule.

Stay out of Danny Moretti's way.

The rule wasn't written anywhere. It didn't need to be.

The nurses knew it.

The physical therapists knew it.

The cooks, guards, drivers, accountants, gardeners, and men who had once followed me through the darkest corners of Chicago knew it.

Even Luke Bennett—my second-in-command and one of the few people alive who could speak to me without asking permission first—knew exactly when to leave a room.

Before the shooting, fear had been useful.

Fear kept rivals cautious.

Fear made dishonest men reconsider their decisions.

Fear made meetings short.

After the shooting, fear became something different.

It became the wall I built around myself.

And every month, that wall grew higher.

My bedroom occupied the entire east side of the second floor of the estate, though calling it a bedroom was generous. It looked more like a luxury hospital room designed by someone ashamed to admit that a hospital room was what it really was.

Custom bed.

Motorized rails hidden beneath Italian leather.

Medication cabinets concealed behind dark walnut panels.

Emergency equipment inside a closet.

An accessible bathroom larger than most Chicago apartments.

And beside the windows sat the thing I hated most.

My wheelchair.

Black.

Custom-built.

Expensive enough to buy a small house.

I still hated touching it.

On stormy nights, phantom pain usually arrived before the thunder.

That night was no exception.

At 11:47 p.m., lightning flashed over Lake Michigan.

At 11:48, pain ripped through both legs.

Legs I couldn't move.

Legs that doctors said might never move again.

I gripped the arms of the chair until my knuckles went white.

The pain felt impossible. White-hot electricity tore from my hips to my ankles, even though a needle pressed into my skin below the injury might as well have been pressed into stone.

The body could forget movement.

The brain was crueler.

The brain remembered everything.

Running.

Driving.

Standing at the head of a conference table.

Stepping out of a black SUV while twenty armed men followed behind me.

Walking into restaurants and watching conversations stop.

I remembered stairs most of all.

I hated stairs now.

A knock sounded.

I didn't answer.

The door opened anyway.

Luke stepped inside carrying a clipboard.

Thirty-eight, broad-shouldered, permanently exhausted, Luke had been beside me since we were teenagers. He had seen me bleeding, furious, drunk, victorious, and once—only once—afraid.

He dropped the clipboard onto my desk.

"The therapist quit."

I looked at him.

"Then hire another."

"That's the third this month."

"Fourth."

Luke stared.

I shrugged.

"The woman from Northwestern lasted eleven days."

"She quit because you told her you'd throw her through the window."

"She told me to visualize happiness."

"That's generally not punishable by death."

"I wasn't going to kill her."

"You picked up a glass paperweight."

"She ducked."

Luke dragged a hand over his face.

There had been a time when an argument between us would end with bourbon.

Now he rarely drank around me.

Maybe he thought seeing another man relax would offend me.

Maybe he was right.

"Danny," he said quietly.

Something in his tone made me look up.

"This place isn't a fortress anymore."

I said nothing.

"It's a grave."

My jaw tightened.

"And you're burying yourself alive."

"Careful."

"I'm the only person in this house who doesn't have to be careful with you."

"Everybody has to be careful with me."

Luke's expression changed.

For half a second, I saw pity.

I hated pity more than the wheelchair.

"Get out."

"Danny—"

"Get out."

He picked up neither the clipboard nor the argument.

He simply left.

The door shut behind him.

Thunder rolled across the city.

I stared through the windows at rain sliding down the glass.

At one time, I controlled nearly half of Chicago's underground operations through legitimate corporations, backroom agreements, favors, debts, and men who had spent their lives learning when to speak and when to stay silent.

The empire hadn't disappeared when the bullet hit me.

If anything, it had become larger.

Money still moved.

Orders still went out.

People still feared my name.

But I no longer entered rooms.

Rooms came to me.

And I hated everyone who walked into them.

At 12:16 a.m., I heard something outside my bedroom.

Scraping.

Then a quiet metallic clink.

I wheeled myself toward the doorway and opened it.

A woman was on her knees in the hallway.

For a second, I thought she'd fallen.

Then I realized she was scrubbing the marble floor.

Brown hair was tied loosely behind her head. A few strands had escaped and stuck to her cheek. She wore a pale housekeeping uniform and cheap shoes.

She looked tired enough to collapse.

Beside her sat a bucket.

She didn't immediately notice me.

"Who the hell are you?"

She looked up.

Not frightened.

Not impressed.

Just tired.

"Emma."

"Emma what?"

"Carter."

"What are you doing?"

She glanced at the sponge in her hand.

"Rebuilding an engine."

I stared.

She sighed.

"Night cleaning."

Then she looked down again.

And continued scrubbing.

I couldn't remember the last time someone had turned their attention away from me before I dismissed them.

"I didn't tell you to keep working."

She stopped.

Slowly, she sat back on her heels.

Her eyes were brown. Softer than I expected.

But there was something stubborn behind them.

"Do you want me to stop?"

"I want you to look at me when I'm talking to you."

She looked directly at me.

"There."

That irritated me more.

"You don't seem to understand where you are."

"I'm in a hallway."

"This is my house."

"I know."

"Then why aren't you nervous?"

For the first time, something almost like amusement crossed her face.

"Because I'm too tired."

That answer caught me off guard.

She wiped the back of her hand across her forehead.

"If I stop working, I don't get paid. If I don't get paid, I can't afford to be here. So unless you're firing me, I'd really like to finish this hallway."

Nobody spoke to me that way.

Nobody.

Not anymore.

I should have fired her immediately.

Instead, I heard myself say, "Finish the hallway."

"Thank you."

She returned to scrubbing.

I remained in the doorway longer than necessary.

She didn't look back.

The next morning, I asked the head housekeeper who Emma Carter was.

Her name was Mrs. Alvarez, and she had worked for my family for eighteen years.

"New night cleaner," she said.

"Why nights?"

"She works at a diner during the day."

"How many hours?"

Mrs. Alvarez hesitated.

"Nine, usually."

"And then she comes here?"

"She needs money."

Everyone needed money.

Usually, I didn't care why.

This time, I asked.

"For what?"

Mrs. Alvarez studied me like she suspected a trap.

"Her mother is in memory care."

Something shifted uncomfortably inside my chest.

I ignored it.

"How much are we paying her?"

"Thirty dollars an hour."

"That's all?"

Mrs. Alvarez's eyebrows rose.

I realized what I'd said.

"Forget it."

She almost smiled.

I glared.

She stopped.

Over the next week, I began seeing Emma everywhere.

Not because she sought me out.

Exactly the opposite.

She seemed determined to do her job without interacting with me at all.

She dusted the library.

Polished the marble.

Carried laundry.

Changed flowers.

Cleaned windows.

And every time our paths crossed, she treated me like I was exactly what I was.

A man in a wheelchair.

Not a king.

Not a monster.

Not a tragedy.

Just a man blocking the hallway.

"You're in the way," she told me one night.

I stared at her.

She held a laundry basket against her hip.

"What?"

"I need to get through."

There was room on the other side.

Barely.

I moved.

"Thanks."

She walked past.

That was it.

I watched her disappear around the corner.

Luke stepped from the study five seconds later.

He had seen everything.

"Don't."

"I didn't say anything."

"You're smiling."

"I have gas."

"I'll fire you."

"You've been threatening that for fifteen years."

Weeks passed.

I continued terrorizing everyone else.

A cook overcooked steak.

I sent the plate back hard enough to break it.

A nurse called me "sweetheart."

She lasted another six minutes.

One of my accountants arrived late.

I made him stand outside my office for three hours.

Emma witnessed all of it.

She never reacted.

Her indifference became infuriating.

Then intriguing.

Then something worse.

I started waiting for the sound of her cleaning cart after midnight.

I never admitted that to myself.

And certainly not to Luke.

Then came Tuesday.

Two in the morning.

Rain again.

I woke with a gasp so violent it hurt my ribs.

Pain exploded through legs that technically felt nothing.

I grabbed the side of the bed.

My breathing turned shallow.

Sweat soaked my shirt.

Medication.

I needed medication.

The bottle was in the kitchen because I'd thrown it there earlier after arguing with the nurse.

Brilliant.

I tried transferring into the wheelchair.

My hands slipped.

The pain sharpened.

"Son of a—"

A sound came from the doorway.

Emma.

She froze when she saw me.

I'd never let her see me like this.

Weak.

Sweating.

Barely able to breathe.

"Get out," I hissed.

She stepped closer.

"I said get out."

"Where are your pills?"

"Leave."

"Danny."

The use of my name startled me.

Not Mr. Moretti.

Not sir.

Danny.

"Where are they?"

"Kitchen."

She waited.

"Left of the sink."

Emma ran.

She returned less than a minute later carrying the bottle and water.

I reached for it.

She opened the bottle first.

"Two."

She checked the label.

"One."

"Give me two."

"No."

My head snapped toward her.

"What did you say?"

"One every six hours."

"You don't understand what this feels like."

"No. I don't."

"Then give me two."

She held the bottle away.

"When did you eat?"

"What?"

"Food."

"I know what eating means."

"When?"

I couldn't remember.

Emma's expression hardened.

"You haven't eaten."

"Give me the damn pills."

"One."

Nobody had told me no in years.

Powerful men apologized when I entered meetings.

Judges returned calls.

Politicians pretended not to know me in public and knew exactly who I was in private.

Yet Emma Carter stood beside my bed at two in the morning, exhausted, underpaid, with cleaning chemicals drying the skin on her hands, deciding how much medication I was allowed to take.

I should have exploded.

Instead, eventually, I held out my hand.

"One."

She gave it to me.

Then she went downstairs.

Ten minutes later she returned with toast.

"I don't want it."

"I don't care."

"You work for me."

"Then fire me tomorrow."

She placed the plate beside me.

"Tonight, eat."