Chapter 1 - The Forbidden Threshold
“Calm down. I’m here to help you.” Those were the first words I said after finding Chicago’s most feared mafia boss half-dressed, bleeding, and barely conscious behind the one bedroom door no servant was ever allowed to open. But seconds before I stepped inside, Damon Volkov had whispered my name—and beside his gun lay something far more terrifying than blood: a photograph of me.
Two days earlier, I had nearly spilled his coffee.
I worked as a maid at the Volkov estate in Lake Forest, where survival depended on one rule:
Stay invisible.
Damon Volkov controlled an empire powerful men discussed in lowered voices.
To me, he was simply Mr. Volkov.
Every morning, I brought him black coffee. No sugar. Brutally strong.
“Good morning, sir.”
That morning, my heel caught the rug.
The tray tipped.
Before the coffee could hit his papers, Damon caught my wrist.
“Careful.”
His voice remained perfectly calm.
Mine disappeared.
For three strange seconds, his hand stayed around my sleeve.
Then he released me.
“Leave it.”
I practically fled to the kitchen.
Sloan Rivera, the cook and my closest friend, took one look at me.
“What happened?”
“I almost spilled his coffee. He caught my wrist.”
Sloan stopped kneading dough.
“Damon Volkov doesn’t touch anyone unless he intends to.”
“Sloan.”
“I’m just telling you what I’ve seen.”
That afternoon, Damon and I nearly collided in a narrow service hallway.
The light flickered out.
Suddenly, we were inches apart.
He could have ordered me aside.
Instead, his jaw tightened.
He stared past my shoulder, turned around, and walked away.
Somehow, that frightened me more.
At 11:47 that night, black cars tore through the estate gates.
Men shouted.
Doors slammed.
Then Damon’s second-in-command, Kirill Sokolov, yelled:
“Doctor!”
Hours later, my intercom rang.
“Alina,” Mrs. Petrova said. “Bring the large medical kit upstairs.”
Everyone knew what that kit meant.
Gunshots.
Knife wounds.
Secrets that never reached hospitals.
Kirill met me outside Damon’s office. Blood stained his cuff.
“Ambush.”
“Where is he?”
“Bedroom.”
I froze.
“No one goes inside.”
“He threw the doctor out.”
Then something crashed behind Damon’s locked door.
I heard a strained breath.
A curse.
And then—
“Alina.”
My entire body went still.
He said my name again.
Softer this time.
Not like an order.
Like a confession.
I opened the door.
Damon sat against the bed, shirt open, blood spreading through the bandage around his ribs.
His gray eyes locked onto mine.
“Close the door.”
“Calm down,” I whispered, gripping the medical case. “I’m here to help you.”
Then I saw the gun on the floor.
Beside it was a photograph.
May you like
My photograph.
And from the way Damon watched me notice it, I knew there was an explanation he had never intended me to hear.
