Chapter 3 - The Maid’s Secret
Beatrice walked into the study, her posture stiff, her head held high despite the fear radiating off her. She didn't look like a thief. She looked like a soldier.
"You took food from my table," I began, circling her slowly.
"I took waste from your trash," she corrected, not backing down.
I stopped in front of her. "Who is she, Beatrice? The woman in the shipyard. How long have you been playing me?"
Her face went pale, but her eyes held a spark of defiance. "I haven't been playing you, Mr. Moretti. I’ve been surviving you."
"She is Julianna Vane. The world believes she is a corpse."
"The world believes what they are told to believe," she said. "She isn't just a name from a file. She is a woman who was promised a future before it was stolen by a man who taught you everything you know."
"Thorne," I said, the name tasting like ash.
"He destroyed her father. He branded her a traitor. And when he couldn't kill her because of the public outcry, he had her hidden. He turned her life into a prison that I have been breaking into for twelve years."
I sat at my desk, looking at the woman who had managed to outmaneuver the most powerful mafia boss in Chicago. "Why now? Why take the risk?"
"Because she’s dying," Beatrice whispered, her voice breaking. "The cold, the lack of medicine... she’s fading, and I have no one left to turn to. I saw the way you looked at that photograph of your wife, the one you keep hidden in the back of the safe. I saw the grief. I thought, maybe, just maybe, the monster has a heart buried under that granite."
The mention of my wife—a woman Thorne had insisted was killed in an accident, an "accident" that felt increasingly suspicious—shot a jolt of adrenaline through me.
"My wife," I started, "you know something about her, too?"
Beatrice stepped forward, lowering her voice. "Your wife didn't die because of a rival gang, Mr. Moretti. She died because she found the documents that proved Julianna was alive."
The room went deathly silent. My hands, which had gripped hundreds of throats, began to tremble.
May you like
"I need you to take me to her," I said, rising. "And if you’re lying to me, Beatrice, the basement won't be enough. I will make sure you never see the light of day."
"I stopped caring about my life the day I started protecting her," she replied.
