Chapter 1 - The Maid Who Didn’t Miss
Micah grabbed the fallen revolver and whispered:
“Stay down.”
Vincent Costanza looked at the scratched .38 in her hands.
Three tiny letters had been carved beneath the grip.
M.C.H.
Vincent suddenly understood his maid had been hiding something.
The next gunshot tore through the carved edge of the overturned cabinet.
Wood splintered across Vincent’s shoulder.
Micah did not scream.
That was the first thing he noticed.
Most people screamed when bullets came through walls. Most people ducked blindly, curled into themselves, or ran wherever fear pointed them.
Micah did none of those things.
She shifted her left knee against the marble floor, planted her shoulder behind the heavy furniture, and angled the revolver toward the reflection in a broken silver serving tray.
Vincent stared.
She wasn’t looking directly into the hallway.
She was using the reflection.
A shadow crossed the silver.
Micah rose.
One shot.
A man near the marble column jerked backward and disappeared from view.
She dropped immediately.
Not a wasted movement.
Not a wasted bullet.
Vincent’s expression changed.
For the first time in the eighteen months Micah Hayes had worked inside his estate, he looked at her without seeing an apron.
“Where did you learn that?”
“Not now.”
Another round struck the wall.
Micah leaned sideways.
Two shots answered.
A handgun skidded across the floor fifteen feet away.
The man who had been holding it collapsed behind an antique chair, clutching his wrist.
Vincent had seen killers freeze under pressure.
He had seen soldiers empty magazines at shadows.
He had seen men with reputations built on violence lose control the second death pointed back at them.
Micah’s breathing remained even.
Four seconds earlier, she had been the quiet woman who polished silverware.
Now she was counting footsteps.
“Three left in the hall,” she said.
Vincent listened.
He heard two.
Then a third shoe scraped lightly against marble.
His eyes narrowed.
“How did you—”
Micah held up one finger.
Silence.
Then a voice called from beyond the columns.
“Costanza!”
Dante Rossi.
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
“You should’ve taken the deal, Vince!”
Vincent leaned back against the cabinet, one arm pressed across his wounded shoulder. Blood darkened his black shirt, but the injury was not deep. The bullet had grazed him during the first eruption of gunfire.
Micah looked at the stain.
“You’re still bleeding.”
“I’ve had worse.”
“That doesn’t answer me.”
Vincent almost smiled.
Almost.
Even now, she spoke to him softly.
Not submissively.
Simply without panic.
Dante continued.
“Your people are down. Your doors are open. And that little army at the docks isn’t coming back in time.”
Vincent’s eyes hardened.
The Rossi meeting had been a setup from the beginning.
The port dispute.
The peace offer.
The demand for a private sit-down.
Every piece of it had been designed to empty the estate.
Paulie had warned him not to trust the brothers.
Vincent had trusted preparation instead.
Steel doors.
Perimeter men.
Cameras.
Weapons hidden in three rooms.
None of it had mattered.
Somebody inside the organization had given Dante the security rotations.
That was the only explanation.
Vincent looked toward the archway.
“Dante,” he called.
Micah turned sharply.
“What are you doing?”
“Buying time.”
“For what?”
“My people.”
A laugh echoed from the hall.
“You don’t have people anymore, Vince.”
Vincent’s expression went still.
Dante stepped partially into view.
Only half his body appeared from behind a marble column.
Smart.
He held a pistol low against his thigh.
His expensive charcoal suit was damp from the rain.
“Come out,” Dante said. “We can still finish this like businessmen.”
Vincent’s eyes flicked toward Micah.
She was watching Dante’s gun hand.
“Businessmen don’t shoot through furniture.”
Dante smiled.
“Depends on the furniture.”
Micah’s gaze shifted to the hallway behind him.
Something bothered her.
The two men approaching from the far left weren’t looking toward Vincent.
They were searching the room.
Cabinets.
Tables.
The built-in shelves.
One of them kicked open a drawer.
Micah whispered, “They’re looking for something.”
Vincent had already noticed.
Dante heard none of it.
“You made a mistake keeping everything so close to home,” he said. “Your father knew better.”
Vincent’s face changed at the mention of his father.
Salvatore Costanza had been dead eleven years.
His name was not spoken casually in that house.
Especially not by Dante Rossi.
“What are you looking for?” Vincent asked.
Dante’s smile faded.
“So you really don’t know.”
Micah looked at Vincent.
There was no performance in his confusion.
Whatever Dante expected him to understand, Vincent didn’t.
Dante took one step farther from the column.
Micah raised the revolver.
He immediately moved back.
“That maid of yours surprised everybody,” Dante said.
Micah’s fingers tightened.
“Where’d you find her?”
Vincent said nothing.
Dante chuckled.
“Maybe you should ask.”
The words struck harder than the gunshots.
Vincent looked at Micah.
She stared toward the hallway.
“Micah.”
“Not now.”
“That’s twice.”
“And you’re still alive.”
A crash sounded from the second floor.
Both of them looked up.
Someone else was inside the house.
Vincent’s stomach turned cold.
The library.
His father’s old study.
The private records.
Dante’s men weren’t simply attacking.
They were searching.
Micah glanced toward the stairway.
“Is there another way upstairs?”
“Servants’ corridor.”
“Show me.”
“You’re not going upstairs.”
Her eyes met his.
“You can barely lift your right arm.”
“I’m aware.”
“And your house is full of armed men.”
“Also aware.”
“Then stop arguing.”
Under any other circumstances, no employee in the estate would have spoken to Vincent that way and remained employed for ten minutes.
Vincent felt something unfamiliar.
Not anger.
Curiosity.
She crawled toward the edge of the cabinet and retrieved the fallen handgun she had shot from the attacker’s hand.
She slid it toward him.
Vincent checked the magazine.
Four rounds.
Micah checked the revolver.
Two.
“Six bullets,” she whispered.
“Against?”
“At least five downstairs. Unknown upstairs.”
Vincent nodded.
“Excellent odds.”
She stared at him.
“You always joke when people are trying to kill you?”
“No. Usually I have more ammunition.”
Footsteps advanced.
Micah touched Vincent’s wrist.
“On three.”
“You giving me orders now?”
“One.”
Vincent’s mouth twitched.
“Apparently.”
“Two.”
Dante shouted, “Last chance, Vince!”
Micah whispered, “Three.”
Vincent fired first.
His shot shattered the light fixture above the hallway.
Darkness dropped across the center of the room.
Micah moved.
Fast.
She crossed behind the cabinet, slid behind a stone pedestal, and fired once toward a muzzle flash.
A man yelled.
Vincent followed.
He used an overturned chair as temporary cover and reached the side corridor.
Micah was already there.
“How?”
“I’m faster than you.”
“I’m wounded.”
“Whatever helps.”
Despite himself, Vincent gave a breathless laugh.
Then her face changed.
Someone appeared at the opposite end of the servants’ corridor.
Micah spun.
Her revolver lifted.
She stopped.
The kitchen manager, Mrs. Bell, stood there shaking.
Her white blouse was streaked with dust.
“Mr. Costanza,” she whispered. “Paulie told me to find you.”
Vincent stepped forward.
“Where is he?”
“He went toward the security room.”
“Anyone hurt?”
“I don’t know.”
She began crying.
Vincent lowered his voice.
“Use the rear entrance. Take everyone in the kitchen and leave.”
Mrs. Bell looked at Micah’s revolver.
Shock crossed her face.
Micah avoided her eyes.
“Go,” Vincent ordered.
Mrs. Bell ran.
Micah started toward the stairs.
Vincent caught her forearm.
“Before we move another inch, you tell me what Dante meant.”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying.”
Her eyes hardened.
Vincent had never seen that look.
Not once.
“I know how to shoot,” she said. “That’s all that matters right now.”
“No.”
“It should be.”
“It isn’t.”
Another crash came from upstairs.
Micah pulled her arm free.
“If we stand here discussing my childhood, we’re going to die.”
Vincent studied her.
Then he stepped aside.
“After this,” he said, “you tell me everything.”
“If there is an after.”
“There will be.”
They moved up the narrow servants’ staircase.
The estate sounded different from inside the walls.
Muffled shots.
Boots.
Furniture breaking.
Rain.
Micah knew the passage because she had used it hundreds of times carrying linens and cleaning supplies.
Vincent knew it because his grandfather had designed the house with escape routes.
They emerged behind the upstairs gallery.
One attacker stood below them.
Vincent aimed.
Micah touched his elbow.
“Wait.”
A second man crossed the lower hall.
Then a third.
They weren’t searching randomly anymore.
They were moving toward the western study.
Vincent’s father’s study.
Micah whispered, “What’s in there?”
“Nothing.”
She looked at him.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Nothing worth invading my house for.”
“That’s not the same answer.”
Vincent did not respond.
They followed quietly.
A man forced the study door open.
Another guarded the hall.
Vincent raised the handgun.
Micah shook her head.
She pointed toward a long decorative mirror on the opposite wall.
The mirror reflected the study entrance.
Two men inside.
One outside.
Vincent whispered, “You really like reflections.”
“They don’t shoot back.”
He looked at her.
Something in that answer sounded learned.
The guard turned.
Vincent fired.
The man dropped behind the railing.
Micah moved toward the study.
Inside, one attacker swung toward her.
She fired the revolver.
His gun fell.
Vincent struck the second man from the side and drove him against the desk.
The struggle lasted three seconds.
Then silence.
Micah stood breathing hard.
Her revolver was empty.
Vincent took the attacker’s pistol.
“Still think we should have talked about your childhood?”
Micah ignored him.
She was staring at the floor.
One of the attackers had dropped something.
Not a weapon.
A photograph.
Micah bent down.
Vincent watched her pick it up.
Her face drained of color.
“What?”
She didn’t answer.
“Micah.”
She turned the photograph over.
It was old.
Faded.
A group of men stood outside a warehouse beside the harbor.
Vincent recognized his father immediately.
Salvatore Costanza.
Twenty years younger.
Beside him stood three men Vincent knew.
And a fourth he did not.
Micah’s hand began trembling.
Vincent noticed.
“Who is he?”
Micah swallowed.
The unknown man was tall, broad-shouldered, with the same dark eyes Micah saw every morning in the mirror.
She whispered one word.
“Dad.”
Vincent stared at her.
Before either could speak, the attacker on the floor began laughing.
Blood ran from his split lip.
Vincent turned.
The man looked directly at Micah.
“So they really never told you.”
Micah raised the empty revolver instinctively.
Vincent stepped closer.
“Told her what?”
The attacker smiled.
“That her father didn’t die in an accident.”
Micah froze.
Vincent’s grip tightened around the pistol.
The man coughed and continued.
“He died because Salvatore Costanza ordered it.”
Then the study door slowly opened behind them.
May you like
And someone standing in the hallway said Micah’s full name.
“Micah Catherine Hayes.”
