Chapter 1 - Look at Me
“Look at me.”
Callum Moretti’s voice came through the kitchen intercom.
Teresa stopped wrapping ice around my bruised wrist.
I stared at the blinking red light.
“Maybe he wants to apologize,” I said.
Teresa snorted.
“Men like Callum apologize by buying buildings.”
“I don’t need a building.”
“Then pray he’s feeling cheap.”
I untied my apron, flexed my fingers once, and immediately regretted it. Frank Russo’s grip had left four purple marks along the inside of my wrist.
The pain was manageable.
Humiliation was worse.
I walked through the silent corridor toward Callum’s study.
His door was open.
He stood near the fireplace with his jacket removed and his sleeves rolled to his elbows.
There was blood on his cuff.
Not mine.
That was comforting in a very specific way.
“Close the door,” he said.
I did.
He looked at my wrist.
I tucked it behind my back.
His jaw tightened.
“You should have told me he hurt you.”
“You were sitting ten feet away.”
His eyes lifted.
“I mean before today.”
I frowned.
“Frank has never touched me before.”
Callum came closer.
“Anyone.”
The word landed differently.
“No.”
He stopped in front of me.
“You’re lying.”
“That’s a bold accusation from a man who employs people professionally.”
His mouth almost moved.
Not a smile.
Something close.
Then his expression hardened.
“Maeve.”
“What?”
“Look at me.”
I did.
He reached toward my face slowly enough that I could move away.
I didn’t.
His fingers touched beneath my chin.
Not controlling.
Barely touching.
He tilted my face toward the light.
His gray eyes searched mine.
For what, I did not know.
Fear?
Deception?
Some evidence that Frank had done more than bruise me?
Neither of us spoke.
My heart behaved like a traitor.
Callum’s thumb hovered near my jaw.
The room suddenly seemed too warm.
Fourteen months of pretending he was only an employer became difficult to maintain from six inches away.
His voice lowered.
“If someone in this organization hurts you, I need to know.”
“Why?”
He hesitated.
That was the mistake.
Callum Moretti never hesitated.
I saw the answer before he gave it.
Not ownership.
Not authority.
Something far more dangerous.
Feeling.
His hand dropped immediately.
“You work under my roof.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It’s the one you’re getting.”
I should have been relieved.
Instead, disappointment moved through me.
Ridiculous.
I turned toward the door.
“Maeve.”
I stopped.
“There is another reason I called you.”
Of course there was.
He returned to the desk.
A bloodstained ledger lay open beneath the lamp.
I recognized it.
Earlier that afternoon, one of Callum’s men had been dragged through the secondary corridor after the meeting went wrong.
That must have been where the blood on the floor came from.
“The messenger?”
“Alive.”
“For now?”
Callum gave me a look.
I raised both hands.
“None of my business.”
“It may be.”
He turned the ledger around.
Rows of numbers.
Shipping codes.
Payments.
Names disguised as initials.
I understood none of it.
Then I saw one line.
B.K. — 240,000 — RAVEN/PIER 11
My stomach tightened.
“What?”
Callum watched my face.
“Nothing.”
“You recognized something.”
“No.”
“Maeve.”
My brother’s name had been Brendan Keane.
He had died fourteen months earlier after driving his car through a highway barrier while drunk.
At least, that was what police told me.
His debts remained.
Callum bought them.
I became part of the repayment arrangement.
Housekeeping wages.
Interest reduced monthly.
Five years of work if I missed no payments.
Callum pointed at the ledger.
“What does B.K. mean to you?”
“Nothing.”
He leaned back.
“Your brother’s surname was Keane.”
“So are thousands of people’s.”
“His first name began with B.”
I said nothing.
Callum opened another page.
There.
BRENDAN K.
My knees almost weakened.
Callum continued.
“Your brother worked at the harbor.”
“He drove trucks.”
“For my company.”
I stared.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“He worked for Donovan Freight.”
“I owned Donovan Freight.”
The world shifted.
“You never told me.”
“You never asked.”
“You knew who he was when I came here?”
“Yes.”
Anger moved faster than thought.
“You let me scrub your floors for fourteen months while knowing my brother worked for you?”
“You worked here because you owed money.”
“Money he owed!”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because until this afternoon, Brendan was a dead driver with gambling debts.”
He tapped the ledger.
“Now he is something else.”
I looked down.
“What?”
“A man who received two hundred forty thousand dollars six days before he died.”
My throat tightened.
“Brendan never had that kind of money.”
“I know.”
“He would have paid the debt.”
“Exactly.”
Callum turned another page.
A second payment.
Then a third.
Total:
$610,000.
My brother had supposedly died owing $126,000.
Someone had paid him more than five times that amount.
“Where did it go?”
“That is what I want to know.”
I stared at the ledger.
The blood soaked into the page near Brendan’s name.
“What happened today?”
Callum’s face changed.
“A courier brought this to me.”
“From whom?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
“And somebody hurt him?”
“He was already hurt when he arrived.”
“Who?”
“We don’t know.”
The messenger had entered the estate bleeding from a knife wound and carrying the ledger beneath his coat.
He collapsed before explaining where it came from.
One sentence only.
Moretti is feeding the wrong wolf.
Then he lost consciousness.
Callum believed the ledger documented theft from his organization.
Millions.
Maybe tens of millions.
And somehow Brendan was connected.
“What does RAVEN mean?” I asked.
“We don’t know.”
“Pier Eleven?”
“Closed four years ago.”
“Before Brendan died?”
“Six months before.”
I looked at him.
“So why was he paid for something there?”
“Exactly.”
Callum’s phone buzzed.
He checked it.
His face hardened.
“What?”
“The courier died.”
The room became quieter.
“What was his name?”
“Elliot Crane.”
I had seen Elliot around the house twice.
Quiet man.
Always polite to staff.
“He died bringing this to you.”
“Yes.”
“And Frank was here today.”
“Yes.”
Something clicked.
“You thought Frank knew about the ledger.”
Callum looked at me.
“I think Frank was trying to see whether I had it.”
“That’s why he acted like an idiot at lunch?”
“Frank rarely needs strategy to act like an idiot.”
Despite myself, I almost laughed.
Callum continued.
“But humiliating you forced my attention away from the meeting.”
“And ended lunch.”
“Yes.”
“So he lost access.”
“Maybe deliberately.”
I frowned.
“Why deliberately?”
“To leave before Elliot arrived.”
Callum looked at Brendan’s name again.
“Frank knew your brother.”
My stomach dropped.
“How?”
“Brendan drove his routes.”
I stepped back.
The debt.
Frank.
Brendan.
The ledger.
Nothing in my life looked accidental anymore.
Callum watched me.
“You should stay inside the estate tonight.”
“No.”
“That was not a request.”
“Then make it one.”
His eyes narrowed.
I continued.
“I have spent fourteen months paying for my brother’s mistakes. I’m not going to become a prisoner because he made worse ones than I knew.”
“I’m trying to keep you alive.”
“Try asking.”
His jaw tightened.
Old Callum wanted to order.
I could see it.
Then he surprised me.
“Will you stay tonight?”
I studied him.
“Yes.”
“Thank you.”
That frightened me more than the command would have.
I picked up the ledger.
He stopped me.
“Careful.”
“I clean blood every day.”
“That page may get you killed.”
I looked at Brendan’s name.
“It may also tell me why my brother died.”
The study door opened.
Finn Doran entered.
Callum’s consigliere.
His oldest friend.
The only man in the house who entered without knocking.
He saw my hand on the ledger.
Then the bruises on my wrist.
Then Callum standing too close to me.
Something unreadable moved across his face.
“Problem?” Callum asked.
Finn smiled.
“No.”
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But his eyes dropped to Brendan’s name.
And for the first time that night, I saw fear in a man who had never seemed afraid of anything.
