She Begged Not to Be Fired After Dropping the Coffee Tray — Then the Mafia Boss Saw the Broken Arm She’d Been Hiding.

PART 6

Everett entered the library before Dante arrived. He locked the doors behind him.

Priya saw the pistol in his hand.

“I was hoping you’d stay a maid,” he said. “You were much less dangerous when everyone believed you were invisible.”

Priya did not scream.

The old version of her might have begged. She might have apologized for discovering something she had never been meant to see.

That woman had been left in the rain beside broken eggs and spilled milk.

“What did you do?” she asked.

Everett raised the pistol. “I protected an organization from a leader who stopped thinking clearly.”

“You gave Silas Kade my address.”

“I gave him an opportunity.”

“To break my arm?”

“He was supposed to frighten you.”

“There were fifteen men.”

“Street animals are difficult to control.”

Priya slipped her phone into the pocket of her dress, pressing the side button three times. A recording application she had prepared began running silently.

“You wanted Dante to attack Kade.”

“I wanted a war.”

“Why?”

Everett laughed without humor. “Dante had become cautious. He was moving money into legitimate companies, cutting profitable operations, refusing deals his father would have accepted. The captains were restless.”

“So you thought a war would weaken him.”

“A war would remind him what he was. If it brought federal pressure, the captains would blame him and choose a new leader.”

“You.”

“Eventually.”

Priya’s heart pounded so hard she wondered whether he could see it beneath her dress.

“You miscalculated.”

“I did.”

“Because Dante didn’t kill those men.”

Everett’s expression tightened. “Because you interfered.”

Priya slowly moved behind a leather chair, putting its heavy back between herself and the gun.

“You’re the reason the task force started examining the docks,” she said. “Those false fuel invoices were payments to Kade.”

Everett smiled. “You are smarter than you look.”

“There it is.”

“What?”

“The reason you failed. You saw my body, my uniform, and my job, and you decided those things told you how intelligent I was.”

His smile vanished.

“You think Dante loves you,” he said. “He doesn’t. Men like him do not love. They acquire.”

“Maybe.”

“You’re a temporary obsession.”

“Then why are you so afraid of me?”

Everett stepped closer. “Because you have made him unpredictable.”

“No. I made him question you.”

He raised the pistol toward her chest.

“When you are gone, he will become himself again.”

Priya’s fingers closed around a brass fireplace tool hidden behind the chair.

“You don’t know him as well as you think.”

“I knew him before you were polishing his floors.”

“And you still never understood the difference between loyalty and obedience.”

Everett’s face twisted.

The library doors exploded inward.

Dante came through the shattered frame with two security officers behind him.

Everett spun.

Priya swung the brass tool with her left hand and struck his wrist. The pistol fired into the ceiling. Plaster rained over the rug.

Dante crossed the room before Everett recovered. He drove him against the fireplace and tore the weapon from his hand.

The security officers remained near the door, uncertain whether they were about to witness an arrest or an execution.

Dante pressed the gun beneath Everett’s jaw.

“You sent fifteen men after her.”

Everett’s breathing became ragged. “She is destroying everything your father built.”

“My father built a prison and called it an empire.”

“You became weak.”

Dante’s finger tightened on the trigger.

Priya saw murder settle over his face.

“Dante.”

He did not move.

“Step away, Priya.”

“No.”

“This man arranged your attack.”

“I know.”

“He was going to kill you.”

“And if you kill him, he gets exactly what he wanted.”

Dante’s eyes flicked toward her.

“He wanted to prove you cannot be anything except violence,” she said. “He wanted everyone around you to believe you would burn down the city whenever someone made you angry.”

“He deserves to die.”

“Maybe. But you do not get to decide that in this room.”

Everett gave a weak laugh. “Listen to her. Your maid is giving you orders.”

Priya looked at him. “Keep talking. My phone is recording.”

Color drained from Everett’s face.

Dante glanced at the pocket of her dress.

“I sent copies of the invoices and access records to attorney Wren Delacroix this morning,” Priya continued. “She was instructed to contact the federal task force if I did not call her by three.”

“You brought federal agents into my house?” Dante asked.

“I gave us a way out.”

“There is no way out of this life.”

“There is always a way out. The question is what you are willing to lose.”

Sirens approached beyond the estate gates.

The security officers exchanged uneasy looks.

Everett began to panic. “Boss, you cannot let them take me. I know everything.”

“That is why they need you alive,” Priya said.

Dante looked down at the man who had stood beside him for sixteen years. Then he looked at Priya.

She did not plead. She simply waited for him to choose what kind of man he would be after the gun left his hand.

Dante lowered the weapon.

“Secure him,” he ordered.

The officers dragged Everett away from the fireplace.

“You’ll regret this!” Everett shouted. “They’ll bury you with me!”

Dante watched him go. “Perhaps.”