Chapter 1 - The Blood on the Stairs
The eighteenth housekeeper ran from the Moretti mansion at midnight, blood streaking her sleeve, screaming that the mafia boss’s son had tried to kill her. At sunrise, a tall man in a plain gray coat walked through the iron gates and said, “I’m here for her job.”
Gabriel Cross did not look like a servant. He carried one canvas bag, watched every camera without turning his head, and met Don Salvatore Moretti’s stare as if the armed guards were furniture.
“Eighteen women quit because of Luca,” Salvatore said. “You think being a man makes you safer?”
“No,” Gabriel replied. “Being careful does.”
House manager Victor Sloane laughed. Beside him, Dr. Edwin Hale closed Luca’s medical file. “The boy has violent psychosis,” Hale said. “Never enter his room without sedation ready.”
The “boy” was twenty-six. Gabriel found him locked in the east wing, thin beneath an expensive sweater, wrists bruised, eyes lucid but heavy. A broken lamp lay near the wall. Dark stains marked the carpet.
Luca whispered, “Did Victor tell you I threw it?”
“Did you?”
“I was unconscious.”
That evening, Victor ordered Gabriel to carry drugged soup upstairs. Gabriel deliberately stumbled in the corridor. Victor caught the tray, furious.
“Clumsy fool. You won’t last two days.”
Gabriel apologized and cleaned the spill. Quietly, he sealed a spoonful inside a specimen vial hidden in his cuff.
At dinner, Salvatore mocked him before the guards. “My son terrifies trained nurses. What makes a failed security guard special?”
Victor supplied the answer with a smile. “Nothing. His sister Elena was our first quitter. Fell down the service stairs, then invented a story to demand money.”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened once. Elena had not walked without pain for six years. Salvatore had buried her complaint, Victor had called her a thief, and Hale had signed a report blaming Luca.
“I remember her,” Salvatore said coldly. “Weak blood.”
Gabriel lowered his gaze, letting them enjoy the insult. “Perhaps.”
Near midnight, Luca began screaming. Victor rushed upstairs with two guards, but Gabriel reached the room first. Luca was convulsing beside an untouched dinner tray. Gabriel turned him on his side, timed the seizure, and stopped Hale from forcing an injection into his neck.
“The label says intramuscular,” Gabriel said softly. “Why are you aiming for the carotid?”
For one breath, the doctor looked afraid.
Then Victor struck Gabriel across the mouth. “Servants don’t question doctors.”
May you like
Gabriel tasted blood and looked toward the hallway camera he had repaired that morning.
“This one does.”
