Chapter 2 - The Exhausted Intruder
My fingers wrapped around the cold, textured grip of the SIG Sauer under my pillow.
Two years of paranoia and muscle memory kicked into overdrive. I didn't care that my legs were useless; my upper body was heavy, hardened muscle, and my draw speed was as fast as it had been when I ran the streets of South Chicago.
I eased the weapon out, thumbing the safety off in absolute silence.
The room was pitch-black except for the sliver of moonlight filtering through the heavy velvet drapes. I felt the steady, gentle rise and fall of a body pressed against the right side of my mattress. The intruder was small, curled into a tight, defensive ball, tucked barely two inches onto the edge of the king-sized bed as if trying to take up as little space as humanly possible.
I raised the barrel, aiming directly at the center of the figure's chest.
Then I heard it.
A soft, ragged exhale. A quiet, subconscious whimpering sigh that I had heard twice before in the hallway—the sound of someone whose body had completely surrendered to sheer, bone-deep exhaustion.
My hand froze.
I reached up with my left hand and clicked the small, dim reading lamp on the nightstand.
Warm amber light washed across the silk sheets.
It wasn't an assassin. It wasn't a hitman sent by the syndicate that took my legs.
It was Emma.
She was still wearing her faded, dark blue cleaning uniform. Her hair was pulled back in a messy bun that had half-unraveled across the white pillowcase. Her face was pale, almost translucent under the lamp, with dark, bruised-looking circles carved beneath her closed eyes. Her hands—cracked, raw, and smelling faintly of bleach—were tucked tightly against her chest.
She had been dusting my nightstand at three in the morning. She must have sat down on the edge of the bed for just a second to rest her feet, and her body had simply shut down like a blown fuse.
I stared down at her, the gun still resting in my right hand.
Anyone else in my house who touched my bed would have been dragged out by Luke’s men and thrown into the street. I had fired a chef for leaving a tray three inches too close to my reach. I had thrown a paperweight at a therapist for stepping into my personal space.
Yet here was a twenty-six-year-old maid, fast asleep on my bed, snoring so softly it was barely audible above the hum of the air conditioner.
Slowly, I thumbed the safety back on the SIG Sauer and slid it back into the hidden holster mounted beneath the mahogany headboard.
I reached for the hand-rims of my wheelchair parked beside the mattress. With a smooth, practiced shift of my weight, I pulled myself into the leather seat. The phantom pain in my lower back flared up instantly, a sharp, burning reminder of the lead bullet still lodged near my spine, but I ignored it.
I rolled closer to the edge of the bed.
I reached out, my heavy, calloused hand hovering over her shoulder. I meant to shake her awake. I meant to bark at her, to remind her of the house rules, to show her the monster everyone else was terrified of.
Instead, my hand drifted down to the heavy, folded cashmere duvet at the foot of the bed.
I grabbed the edge of the blanket and pulled it carefully over her shoulders, covering her down to her worn, scuffed sneakers. She stirred slightly, letting out a soft sigh, her face settling deeper into the pillow as the warmth caught her.
May you like
I backed my wheelchair away from the bed, rolling into the dark corner near the window.
I sat there in the silence for four hours, watching the rain strike the glass, guarding the sleep of a maid who was too exhausted to care that she was sharing a room with a killer.
