Chapter 5 - THE CAREGIVER
Billy stared at the empty file folder, the single handwritten note trembling in her hand.
I told you not to play games.
Sabine hadn't just threatened her at the hotel. While Billy was bleeding on the ballroom floor, Sabine had sent someone to break into her house and steal the only proof she had.
Panic seized Billy’s chest, tight and agonizing.
She dropped the folder and sprinted down the narrow hallway to her mother’s bedroom.
She pushed the door open.
Deardra was asleep in her medical bed, the rhythmic hiss of her oxygen machine filling the quiet room. She was unharmed.
Billy sagged against the doorframe, a ragged breath escaping her lips. They hadn't hurt her. They had only come for the proof.
But how did they know where to look?
The sewing cabinet was an antique. The second drawer stuck unless you pulled it at a very specific angle. No random burglar would have found it in the dark without tearing the house apart.
Unless they knew exactly where it was.
Billy’s mind raced. The caregiver.
Martha had been coming to the house six days a week for the past year. She knew the routine. She knew Billy worked late. She knew Deardra couldn't speak or move well enough to stop anyone.
Billy walked into the kitchen and turned on the overhead light.
She grabbed her phone and dialed Martha’s number.
It rang four times before going to voicemail.
“Martha, it’s Billy,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “I need you to call me back immediately. It’s about my mother.”
She hung up, her stomach twisting into painful knots.
She had no proof. She had no leverage. And if Sabine really held a secret second lien on the house, Billy was about to lose everything.
She looked at the clock on the stove. 2:30 AM.
She went to the sink, turned on the cold water, and carefully unwrapped the bloody silk handkerchief Rafe had tied around her hand.
As the fabric unspooled, something small and heavy dropped into the stainless-steel sink with a sharp clink.
Billy frowned.
She reached into the sink and picked it up.
It was a thick, silver ring. A man’s signet ring, engraved with the Santangelo family crest.
Rafe hadn't just given her a handkerchief. He had slipped his own ring inside the folds before tying it around her hand.
Billy stared at the heavy silver ring.
Why would the mafia boss give a banquet server his family ring?
She remembered the rumors she had heard in the breakroom during her nine months at the Windmir.
If Rafe Santangelo gives you his ring, it means you have his protection. No one in the North End can touch you.
But he didn't know her. He didn't even know if she was telling the truth about Sabine stealing the design. Why would he protect her?
Unless he already suspected Sabine was lying to him about more than just the server.
Billy clenched the ring in her uninjured fist.
She didn't have the sketches anymore. She didn't have the receipts. But she had something Sabine didn't know about.
Billy walked back into the living room. She sat down at her grandmother’s heavy, reliable sewing machine.
She reached into her apron pocket and pulled out the small, frayed scrap of black silk. The original reverse-beaded pattern her mother had sewn four years ago. The one she had kept on her person every single day.
They had stolen the paper trail, but they hadn't stolen the physical proof.
Billy turned on the small lamp above the sewing machine.
She threaded the needle with black thread.
She wasn't going to fix trousers tonight.
She was going to take the pattern apart.
She spent the next three hours carefully, meticulously snipping the threads of her mother’s original design, documenting every layer, every hidden stitch with her phone camera.
Sabine’s dresses looked exactly like this on the outside. But Billy knew her mother’s work. Deardra always hid a signature in her complex patterns. A specific knot, tied on the underside of the fabric, completely invisible from the exterior, but structurally essential to keeping the beads aligned.
If Sabine had stolen the design, her dresses would either fall apart, or she would have copied the signature knot without knowing what it was.
By 5:30 AM, Billy had finished dissecting the fabric. She had clear photos of the signature knot.
But photos weren't enough. She needed to prove Sabine’s dresses had the exact same hidden knot.
She needed to get her hands on one of Sabine’s gowns.
The front door unlocked with a loud click.
Billy jumped, grabbing the heavy fabric shears from the table.
The door opened.
It wasn't Martha the caregiver.
It was a tall, broad-shouldered man in a dark suit. He didn't look like a burglar. He looked like muscle.
He stepped into the living room, his eyes scanning the space before landing on Billy sitting at the sewing machine holding the scissors.
“Billy Ror?” the man asked. His voice was gravelly, strictly professional.
“Who are you?” Billy demanded, backing up slightly.
“My name is Enzo,” the man said, not moving closer. “Mr. Santangelo sent me.”
Billy tightened her grip on the shears. “Sent you to do what?”
May you like
Enzo pointed to the window.
“To make sure nobody else comes through that door.”
