Chapter 1 - The Song He Wasn't Supposed to Hear
Six days after I started working for the most feared mafia boss in Westchester County, I made one spectacular mistake.
I turned my feather duster into a microphone and sang at full volume inside his mansion.
The real disaster came when Dominic Vale returned hours early and stood behind me long enough to hear nearly the entire chorus.
My name is Rachel Bennett, and at twenty-nine, I was far more comfortable being invisible than becoming the center of attention.
Unfortunately, that afternoon, I was performing like Madison Square Garden had personally booked me.
My burgundy housekeeping uniform swished around my knees as I crossed the enormous formal parlor.
I was polishing an antique console with one hand while gripping my white feather duster dramatically in the other.
A tiny Bluetooth speaker sat on my cleaning cart.
The volume was dangerously high.
Dominic wasn’t supposed to be home until evening.
So naturally, I sang louder.
When the chorus hit, I spun toward a marble statue, pointed my feather duster directly at its face, and gave that lifeless piece of stone the most passionate performance of my life.
What I didn’t know was that Dominic had returned at exactly 2:17.
And he was watching me.
His security chief, Marcus Cole, had apparently stopped behind him and witnessed my completely unnecessary half-turn.
I would later learn Marcus almost laughed.
Dominic gave him one look and demanded absolute silence.
Meanwhile, I kept singing.
Dominic Vale was thirty-eight, six-foot-three, broad-shouldered, and almost always dressed in black.
He controlled logistics companies, restaurants, private clubs, and several businesses nobody with good survival instincts asked about.
He almost never raised his voice because he didn't need to.
Dominic could make silence feel more threatening than another man’s scream.
Which was why his mansion had strict rules against noise.
Then I backed toward my cleaning cart and turned around.
My heart nearly stopped.
Dominic stood in the doorway.
The music kept playing.
For one horrifying second, neither of us moved.
I shut off the speaker, expecting to be fired or worse.
Instead, he told me to bring the speaker back the next day because there was something in the house he wanted me to hear.
The next morning, Marcus escorted me to the forbidden west wing.
Dominic was waiting inside a beautiful, dusty music room filled with pictures of a young girl.
He told me her name was Sofia.
She was his sister, and she died ten years ago.
He hadn't listened to music since.
Dominic pulled out a digital recorder he had found hidden in the wall.
He said he had listened to the first sixteen tracks, but couldn't listen to the last one.
He wanted me there because my singing was the first music to fill the house in a decade.
Dominic pressed play.
Static filled the room.
Then a young woman's voice echoed through the silence.
She said the accident wasn't an accident.
My blood ran cold.
May you like
Sofia’s voice dropped to a terrified whisper.
She said the person responsible was still inside his house.
