Chapter 4 - The House That Remembered BloodMaeve cooked potatoes the next morning.
It was an absurd thing to do in a penthouse guarded by armed men, with Roman stitched together in the bedroom and half of Falcone Manor looking like a war zone.
That was precisely why she did it.
Normality, Maeve had learned, was not something life gave you.
You stole it back.
At 6:17 a.m., she stood barefoot in the safe house kitchen wearing Gabriel’s oversized black sweater and a pair of borrowed sweatpants rolled twice at the ankles.
The cast-iron skillet had not survived the evacuation.
She resented this personally.
The penthouse kitchen contained copper pans imported from France, Japanese knives arranged like surgical instruments, and a refrigerator stocked with ingredients Maeve suspected had never known the indignity of a discount sticker.
None of it impressed her.
She found potatoes.
Butter.
Eggs.
Bacon.
Enough.
The smell traveled.
Declan appeared first.
He looked terrible.
His shoulder had been bandaged, his knuckles were swollen, and a dark bruise covered the left side of his jaw.
He stood in the doorway and stared at Maeve.
“You’re cooking.”
“No,” Maeve said. “I’m performing open-heart surgery. Grab plates.”
Declan obeyed.
That still disturbed her.
Three months ago, Declan Falcone had deliberately smeared blood across a wall to see whether she would break.
Now she told him to grab plates, and he did it without argument.
Gabriel arrived next.
His expensive shirt had been replaced with a plain white T-shirt. He looked younger without the silk, jewelry, and practiced smile.
More dangerous, somehow.
More human.
“Coffee?” he asked.
“Already made.”
Gabriel poured himself a cup.
“Marry me.”
Maeve pointed the spatula at him.
“It's drip coffee.”
“I have low standards.”
“You absolutely do not.”
Declan snorted.
Then Roman appeared.
The kitchen changed.
He was pale beneath his usual composure. His left arm rested in a sling, and every step clearly hurt.
But he had put on trousers and a white dress shirt anyway.
Maeve stared at him.
“No.”
Roman stopped.
“No?”
“Bedroom.”
“I’m capable of eating breakfast at a table.”
“You were shot yesterday.”
“I noticed.”
“Apparently not enough.”
Gabriel hid a smile behind his coffee.
Roman looked toward him.
Gabriel immediately became fascinated by the city skyline.
Maeve planted both hands on her hips.
“Bed.”
Roman Falcone had made judges change rulings.
He had made police commissioners stop asking questions.
He had once shut down an entire shipping terminal because someone had insulted Gabriel during a negotiation.
He looked at Maeve.
Maeve looked back.
Roman turned around.
Declan started laughing.
Roman stopped.
“Something amusing?”
Declan’s face became expressionless.
“No.”
Roman disappeared down the hallway.
Maeve returned to the potatoes.
“That,” Gabriel murmured, “may be the most impressive thing I’ve ever witnessed.”
“Eat.”
They brought Roman’s breakfast to the bedroom.
He pretended to be annoyed.
He ate every bite.
For fifteen minutes, there were no enemies.
No blood.
No syndicate.
Just four exhausted people eating breakfast while rain streaked across the windows.
Then Lorenzo arrived.
He was Roman’s chief lieutenant, a broad man in his late forties with iron-gray hair and the permanently suspicious expression of someone who had survived by expecting betrayal.
He carried a laptop.
The moment Roman saw it, the softness disappeared.
“Tell me.”
Lorenzo placed the computer on the bed.
“The attack wasn't Marco’s operation.”
Roman’s jaw tightened.
“We know he hired the contractors.”
“He paid them.”
Lorenzo opened a file.
“But somebody gave them the house.”
Maeve stopped halfway through collecting the plates.
Roman’s eyes sharpened.
“What does that mean?”
“Floor plans. Security rotations. Generator diagnostics. Gate codes.”
Silence.
Maeve felt cold.
The generator.
Her maintenance report.
Roman looked at her.
She understood immediately.
“Someone had access to my files.”
“Yes,” Lorenzo said.
Declan pushed away from the wall.
“Who?”
“We’re narrowing it down.”
“Narrow faster.”
“Declan.”
Roman’s voice stopped him.
Maeve placed the dishes on the bedside table.
“Who knew about the generator?”
Lorenzo glanced at Roman.
“Answer her,” Roman said.
“The technician company. Mrs. Hess. Estate management. Security command.”
“And me.”
“Yes.”
Gabriel leaned against the window.
“That leaves a lot of people.”
Maeve shook her head.
“No.”
They looked at her.
“The diagnostic failed Tuesday. I didn’t enter it into the main accounting system until Tuesday afternoon.”
She thought.
“I called the repair company at 2:10. They scheduled Thursday.”
“The attack happened Wednesday,” Gabriel said.
Maeve nodded.
“So whoever planned it learned about the generator in less than twenty-four hours.”
Roman sat straighter despite the pain.
“That cuts the list.”
Maeve looked toward Lorenzo.
“Who accessed the estate maintenance system after Tuesday afternoon?”
Lorenzo stared at her.
“I don’t know.”
“Find out.”
Declan smiled faintly.
Lorenzo did not.
Maeve crossed her arms.
“What?”
“You sound like Roman.”
“That is the rudest thing anyone has said to me this week.”
Gabriel laughed.
Roman almost smiled.
Almost.
Lorenzo closed the laptop.
“We’ll check.”
“No,” Maeve said.
Everyone stopped.
She walked to the computer.
“Check now.”
Lorenzo’s expression hardened.
“Maeve—”
“Someone walked twenty armed men into my house.”
The room went still.
My house.
She heard it only after she said it.
So did the brothers.
Maeve ignored the sudden weight in Roman’s gaze.
“They knew where the cameras were. They knew the generator was compromised. They knew the panic room would become useless.”
She pointed at the laptop.
“That means someone didn’t just want the Falcones dead. They wanted them trapped.”
Gabriel’s smile disappeared.
Maeve continued.
“And if they had enough information to know about the generator, they might have enough information to know where we went afterward.”
Roman reached for his phone.
“Lorenzo, move the perimeter out two blocks.”
Lorenzo nodded.
“Declan, nobody enters without being searched.”
Declan was already moving.
“Gabriel—”
“I’ll check the building staff.”
Maeve looked between them.
Three predators awakening.
She should have been frightened.
Instead, something else settled inside her.
Anger.
Someone had invaded the place she had spent months turning into a home.
Someone had shot Roman.
Someone had forced Declan to bleed through his clothes.
Someone had made Gabriel’s hands shake in that tunnel.
Maeve had spent her entire life losing things because she lacked money, influence, or power.
She was tired of losing.
“Give me access to the logs,” she said.
Roman looked at her.
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
Maeve stared.
“What?”
“You are staying out of this.”
“You just said somebody accessed my maintenance records.”
“And now I’m telling you to stay out of it.”
There he was.
Roman Falcone.
The man who believed protection and control were the same thing.
Maeve’s anger redirected itself.
“Absolutely not.”
“Maeve.”
“No.”
Roman’s expression hardened.
“You nearly died yesterday.”
“So did you.”
“That is different.”
“Because?”
“Because this is my world.”
Maeve laughed once.
It contained no humor.
“Your world blew up my kitchen.”
Roman said nothing.
“It chased me through a basement. It put your blood on my hands. It destroyed my home.”
She stepped closer.
“You don’t get to tell me it isn't my world after it already tried to kill me.”
Declan stopped at the door.
Gabriel watched silently.
Roman and Maeve stared at each other.
Neither moved.
Finally Roman spoke.
“If I give you access, you follow my rules.”
“No.”
His eyebrow lifted.
“I’ll follow reasonable security precautions. I’m not becoming a prisoner.”
“That isn't negotiable.”
“Then neither is my help.”
Roman’s jaw flexed.
Gabriel cleared his throat.
“I would like to formally state that watching you two negotiate is more frightening than being shot at.”
Neither acknowledged him.
Finally Roman exhaled.
“Fine.”
Maeve held out her hand.
“Laptop.”
Lorenzo gave it to her.
Three hours later, Maeve found the ghost.
The login belonged to Mrs. Hess.
The former house manager.
Maeve stared at the screen.
Mrs. Hess had accessed the maintenance database at 11:43 Tuesday night.
She had downloaded the generator report.
At midnight, she had copied the security schedule.
Wednesday morning, she had resigned.
Wednesday afternoon, Falcone Manor had been attacked.
Maeve felt something inside her drop.
Mrs. Hess had been frightened.
Exhausted.
But she had been kind to Maeve.
She had warned her.
She had given her the keys.
“She sold us out,” Declan said.
Maeve shook her head.
“Maybe.”
Roman looked at her.
“What do you see?”
“She downloaded everything using her personal login.”
Gabriel understood.
“Too obvious.”
“Exactly.”
Maeve enlarged the access record.
“If she wanted to betray you, why leave her name everywhere?”
Roman’s gaze narrowed.
“Someone used her credentials.”
“Or someone wanted us to think she did it.”
Lorenzo entered.
His expression answered the question before he spoke.
“We found Mrs. Hess.”
Maeve stood.
“Where?”
“In her apartment.”
Something in Lorenzo’s voice made Gabriel straighten.
Roman’s face became stone.
“Alive?”
Lorenzo looked at Maeve.
“No.”
Silence swallowed the room.
Maeve closed her eyes.
The woman who had thrown her a ring of keys and told her not to be a hero was dead.
A message had been left beside her.
One sentence.
Typed.
Printed.
Deliberately impersonal.
Lorenzo placed the photograph on the table.
Roman read it first.
Then Declan.
Then Gabriel.
Maeve reached for it.
Roman tried to stop her.
She took it anyway.
The message contained six words.
THE MAID WAS SUPPOSED TO DIE TOO.
Maeve read it twice.
Then a third time.
Her hands did not shake.
That frightened her more than if they had.
Roman took the photograph away.
“Pack.”
Maeve looked at him.
“What?”
“We leave the city tonight.”
“No.”
“Maeve.”
“You said we weren’t doing this.”
“This changed things.”
“It changed nothing.”
“It means you were a target.”
“I understood that part.”
Roman stood too quickly.
Pain crossed his face.
He ignored it.
“You are leaving.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere nobody knows.”
“And Chloe?”
“She comes with you.”
“And you?”
Roman said nothing.
Maeve laughed bitterly.
There it was.
He intended to send her away while the three brothers stayed.
She stepped toward him.
“You gave me the keys.”
Roman’s expression shifted.
“You told me the gates were open. You told me I could choose.”
“This is different.”
“No.”
Maeve’s voice softened.
“That promise only matters when you hate my choice.”
Roman stared at her.
Behind him, Declan lowered his eyes.
Gabriel looked almost sad.
Maeve continued.
“You want me safe?”
“Yes.”
“Then stop treating me like furniture you can move away from a fire.”
Roman flinched.
Barely.
But she saw it.
“I am staying,” Maeve said.
Declan looked at Roman.
“She’s staying.”
Gabriel nodded.
Roman looked betrayed.
“You two are useless.”
“Correct,” Gabriel said.
Maeve picked up the laptop.
“Now find out who killed Mrs. Hess.”
She walked toward the kitchen.
Roman watched her go.
For the first time in his adult life, someone had rejected his protection without rejecting him.
He did not know what to do with that.
Maeve did.
She put the skillet on the stove.
Because grief did not stop breakfast.
May you like
And somewhere outside those windows, someone believed she had been supposed to die.
Maeve intended to disappoint them.
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