Chapter 5 - Blood in the Foyer
Three weeks passed in a blur of rigorous routine.
Falcone House transformed. The cold, sterile stone halls began to smell of cedar, roasted meats, and lavender linen spray. The heavy black drapes were pulled back during the day, letting the winter sun flood the marble floors.
The brothers, despite their lethal reputations, adapted to Maeve’s presence with a strange, unspoken rhythm.
Declan began leaving his dirty boots in a wooden rack by the mudroom door.
Gabriel stopped offering her bribe checks and instead brought her fresh pastries from his trips into Providence, leaving them on the kitchen counter with cryptic, cheerful notes.
Roman remained distant, a shadow watching over his empire from his third-floor office, but every Friday at 8:00 a.m. sharp, Maeve’s phone chimed with the exact notification of her doubled direct deposit. Chloe’s health had stabilized under Dr. Harrison’s care, her pale cheeks finally regaining color in her bright, sunny private hospital room.
Then came Tuesday night.
The storm outside was light, a cold freezing rain that glazed the long asphalt driveway. Roman and Gabriel were out in Boston for business negotiations, leaving only Declan and Maeve at the estate.
At 11:00 p.m., Maeve was finishing the inventory in the wine cellar when the heavy oak front doors of the estate slammed open with a violent, reverberating crash.
Maeve dropped her clipboard and ran up the stone stairs into the foyer.
Declan was leaning heavily against the grand marble staircase, his breathing ragged and wet. His leather jacket was shredded, soaked in crimson blood that pooled rapidly around his boots. Supported under his arm was a younger man—a young Falcone soldier named Mickey—who was unconscious and pale as death, a dark bullet wound leaking from his thigh.
“Maeve!” Declan roared, his voice strained and hoarse. “Get the kit! The big one from the pantry!”
Maeve didn't freeze. She sprinted to the pantry, grabbed the heavy black trauma bag Roman had insisted on keeping stocked, and ran back into the foyer.
Declan had dragged Mickey onto the Persian rug, pressing a wad of cloth against the boy’s leg. Declan’s own shirt was soaked through from a deep slash across his ribs.
“Ambush,” Declan grunted, his face pale, sweat pouring down his forehead. “Moretti’s men. At the docks. Gabriel and Roman are driving back now, but Mickey’s losing too much blood. His femoral artery—”
“Move,” Maeve commanded, dropping to her knees beside the bleeding boy.
She pulled heavy trauma shears from the bag and sliced open Mickey’s jeans. The wound was spouting dark, oxygenated blood in rhythmic squirts.
“Tourniquet,” Maeve snapped, holding her hand out.
Declan slapped the tactical tourniquet into her palm. Maeve slid it high up the boy’s thigh, cranked the rod tight until the bleeding slowed to a trickle, and locked it into place. Mickey groaned, his eyes rolling back into his head, but his pulse remained steady.
“He’s stable for now,” Maeve panted, wiping sweat from her forehead with her forearm. She turned her eyes immediately to Declan. “Now you. Sit down.”
“I’m fine—” Declan began, but his knees buckled, and he slid heavily against the staircase banister.
Maeve tore open his shirt. The slash across his side was six inches long, deep and ragged, missing his vital organs by mere centimeters, but bleeding heavily.
“You’re an idiot,” she swore softly, pulling bottle after bottle of saline solution and iodine from the kit. “You drove back here bleeding to death?”
“Couldn't go to a hospital,” Declan rasped, a faint, bloody grin touching his lips. “Cops ask questions. Besides... I knew my medic was home.”
“I am a maid!” Maeve yelled, pouring cold saline directly into his open wound to wash out the dirt and leather fibers.
Declan gritted his teeth, his fingers digging into the hardwood floor, leaving deep gouges in the wood. He didn't scream. He just stared at her, his dark eyes filled with a terrifying, fierce respect as she began stitching his side with rapid, expert precision.
“You’re not just a maid, Maeve,” Declan grunted through the pain, his hand reaching out to gently touch the edge of her hair, leaving a streak of red on her cheek. “You’re the toughest thing in this damn house.”
By the time Roman and Gabriel burst through the front doors twenty minutes later, flanked by six armed guards with rifles drawn, the foyer was quiet.
Mickey was resting comfortably on a sofa, an IV drip running into his arm.
Declan was sitting on the bottom stair, his side neatly stitched, bandaged, and covered in a clean blanket, drinking sweet tea from a mug.
And Maeve was on her hands and knees with a bucket of soapy water and a scrub brush, methodically scrubbing blood stains out of the Persian rug.
Roman stopped in the doorway. He looked at Mickey, looked at Declan, and then looked down at Maeve. His usual impenetrable mask cracked, revealing a deep, stunned shock.
Gabriel stepped forward, staring at the clean bandages on his brother. “Did you do this?”
Maeve didn't look up from her scrubbing. “If you gentlemen are going to bring war into the house, please do it on the tile floor next time. Wool rugs are expensive.”
Gabriel let out a high, breathy laugh, covering his face with his hands. “Unbelievable. She patched up a soldier and fixed Declan, and now she’s complaining about the rug.”
Roman slowly walked across the foyer. He knelt down beside Maeve, taking the scrub brush directly out of her blood-stained hands.
“Stop,” Roman said softly.
Maeve looked up, meeting his dark, intense gaze. “I need to clean it before it sets—”
“Maeve,” Roman repeated, his voice softer than she had ever heard it. He grabbed a clean towel from her bucket and gently wiped the smear of Declan’s blood off her cheek. “Leave it. The guards will clean the floor.”
He stood up, holding out his hand to help her up.
May you like
Maeve hesitated, then took his hand. His grip was warm, strong, and surprisingly gentle.
“Go upstairs and wash,” Roman instructed, his eyes searching her face with an intensity that made her breath catch. “You’ve done enough tonight.”
