Everyone in Malcolm Rook’s mansion had been warned that entering his private room could get us fired, or worse. But when I found the city’s most feared crime boss unconscious behind that forbidden door, I realized something even more terrifying: the men claiming to protect him might be the reason he was dying. Three weeks earlier, I’d accepted the maid job for one simple reason. I was broke.

Tommy’s fingers tightened on the closet handle. Through the thin wooden slats, I could see the cold, dead look in his eyes. He wasn't just checking the room; he was hunting.

I pressed myself flat against the back wall, burying my face into the silk of Malcolm’s hanging suits to stifle the sound of my ragged breathing. My fingers dug so hard into the child’s crayon drawing that I could feel the paper tearing.

This is it, I thought, closing my eyes. I’m going to die for nine dollars an hour.

“Mr. Marlow.”

Mrs. Birch’s sharp, authoritative voice cut through the tense silence of the bedroom. Tommy froze, his grip on the handle loosening slightly.

“What is it?” Tommy snapped without turning around.

“There’s a smear of blood near the baseboard by the corridor door,” Mrs. Birch lied smoothly.

I opened my eyes. I had been staring right at that baseboard before I hid. There was no blood there. Malcolm hadn’t been bleeding; he was poisoned. Mrs. Birch was making it up. But why? She had just agreed to help Tommy hunt us down.

Tommy dropped his hand from the closet door. “He went for the stairs,” he muttered, immediately turning his back to my hiding place. “Come on. If he makes it to the secure phone line in the basement, we’re both dead.”

“I’ll check the east wing, sir,” Mrs. Birch said.

Before she followed Tommy out of the room, Mrs. Birch paused near the center of the rug. She didn’t look toward the closet, but with a deliberate, calculated flick of her wrist, she unclipped the heavy ring of master keys from her apron belt and let them drop silently onto the thick Persian carpet.

Then she turned and walked out, pulling the heavy oak door shut behind her.

I stood in the dark closet for what felt like an eternity, waiting for the sound of their footsteps to fade completely. When the house was silent except for the driving rain against the windows, I pushed the closet doors open and stumbled out, my knees shaking so badly I almost collapsed.

I scooped up Mrs. Birch’s keys.

She wasn’t working with Tommy. She was playing him. She had deliberately steered him away from the closet and left me the only tool I needed to navigate the locked doors of the mansion.

“Clever woman,” a raspy voice whispered from the shadows.

I spun around, suppressing a scream.

One of the massive oak bookcases on the far wall had swung outward by a few inches, revealing a hidden alcove behind it. Malcolm Rook was slumped inside the narrow dark space, his chest heaving, his face slick with a cold, terrifying sweat.

I rushed over, hooking my arms under his shoulders to help him slide out of the alcove. He was incredibly heavy, dead weight against my small frame.

“You vanished,” I breathed, easing him onto the edge of his unmade bed.

“Secret panels,” he coughed, a terrible rattling sound deep in his lungs. “Built this house to survive a war. Didn’t think the war would start in my own dining room.”

“Tommy poisoned you,” I said, pulling Tommy’s gold watch from my apron. “He dropped this when he did it.”

Malcolm barely glanced at the watch. His eyes were locked on my other hand. The crumpled drawing.

“Give that to me,” he demanded weakly.

I handed him the construction paper. Malcolm’s trembling fingers traced the crude crayon drawing of the little boy. For a fleeting second, the terrifying mob boss dissolved, leaving behind only a broken, terrified old man.

“Who is he?” I asked softly.

“Leo,” Malcolm whispered. “My grandson.”

“I didn’t know you had a family.”

“Nobody does. Nobody was supposed to.” Malcolm closed his eyes, his breathing growing shallower. “My daughter, Elena… she hated my life. Hated the blood on my hands. She ran away, changed her name. Had a beautiful little boy. I promised I’d leave them alone to keep them safe.”

“What changed?”

“Elena died last year,” Malcolm’s voice cracked. “A hit-and-run. I tracked down the boy. He was in foster care. I brought him here, hid him in the servant’s quarters in the basement. I was leaving the life, Sarah. I drew up the papers yesterday to liquidate all my assets, put it all in a trust for Leo, and vanish.”

It suddenly made sense. Tommy Marlow wasn’t just power-hungry; he was greedy. If Malcolm dissolved the empire and gave the money to a child, Tommy would be left with nothing.

“We have to get you to a hospital,” I insisted.

“No hospital,” Malcolm wheezed. “In the basement… medical room. I have a universal counteragent in the cold storage. Military grade. We get that, I live. But we have to get to Leo first. Tommy knows about him now.”

“I have Mrs. Birch’s keys,” I said, holding up the brass ring.

“Then we have a chance.” He gripped my arm, his knuckles white. “Help me up.”

It took everything I had to get him onto his feet. I draped his heavy arm over my shoulder, serving as his human crutch. Every step we took down the dimly lit servant stairs felt like walking through a minefield. The storm outside raged, masking the sound of our descent.

We finally reached the basement. It was freezing, smelling of damp earth and old copper pipes.

I fumbled with the keys, finding the one marked with a small blue dot, just as Mrs. Birch had once shown me. I unlocked the heavy metal door leading to the old servant quarters.

We stumbled inside, the darkness absolute.

I reached for the light switch, but before my fingers could graze the plastic, a small, trembling voice echoed from the corner of the pitch-black room.

“Grandpa?”

I froze. A tiny figure stepped out of the shadows, clutching something that glinted faintly in the ambient light spilling from the hallway.