Chapter 6 - The Maid Became a Target
Marco took my phone away before I could argue.
Not Luca’s phone.
Mine.
“You’re angry at the wrong device,” I said.
“I’m removing anything they can track.”
“They already know who I am.”
“That’s the problem.”
We were standing outside Luca’s intensive care room while two guards sealed the corridor.
Marco’s calm expression had disappeared.
“What happens now?” I asked.
“You don’t go home.”
“My apartment—”
“Is already being checked.”
“My father’s photographs are there.”
“We’ll retrieve them.”
“My clothes?”
“We’ll retrieve those too.”
“My life?”
Marco looked at me.
“That one might take longer.”
I hated how true it sounded.
Before that night, I had been invisible.
I took two buses to work.
I bought groceries on Wednesdays because the market discounted produce.
I called my older sister every Sunday even though conversations had become awkward since our mother died.
I had never owned a car.
Never been inside a private jet.
Never carried a weapon.
Now armed men were discussing whether I needed an armored vehicle.
All because I noticed damp wallpaper.
At 2:00 a.m., Luca woke.
The first word he said was my name.
Not Marco’s.
Not his doctor’s.
Mine.
“Mara?”
I moved beside the bed.
“I’m here.”
His eyes focused slowly.
“You’re safe?”
I almost laughed.
“You’re the one in intensive care.”
“Answer me.”
“Yes.”
For now.
He seemed to hear the part I did not say.
“What happened?”
Marco showed him the message.
Luca read it once.
His face changed.
I had seen anger before.
This was different.
Cold.
Controlled.
Terrifying.
“Greco.”
“Probably.”
Luca looked at me.
“You leave Chicago tonight.”
“No.”
His eyebrows lifted slightly.
“No?”
“I have spent the last eighteen hours telling you that being afraid does not make people property.”
“This isn’t about property.”
“It’s about control.”
“It’s about keeping you alive.”
“And I decide how that happens.”
He shut his eyes.
For a second, I thought he was too exhausted to argue.
Then he whispered, “I hate when you’re right.”
“Get used to it.”
His mouth moved.
A weak smile.
We agreed I would stay at a secured apartment belonging to Mrs. Vale’s sister.
I would not return home.
I would not travel alone.
And I would continue working only if I wanted to.
I didn’t know whether I did.
The next morning, Dr. Harland signed a full statement.
He admitted receiving money from Vittorio.
He admitted altering Luca’s medications.
He admitted helping install the diffuser.
But he claimed Salvatore Greco ordered the contamination system behind the wall.
That changed everything.
Greco was not just exploiting Vittorio’s betrayal.
He had designed it.
By noon, federal agents were involved.
Luca hated that.
“The government will seize half my files.”
Marco shrugged.
“Better than Greco seizing your lungs.”
I liked Marco more every hour.
Three days later, Luca left intensive care.
His breathing had improved.
His bloodwork showed the immunosuppressive compound slowly leaving his system.
He would not recover overnight.
But for the first time, a doctor used the word recovery.
Luca looked at me when he heard it.
I looked away.
Because relief felt dangerously close to something else.
Something I was not ready to name.
That evening, he asked me to walk with him down the hospital corridor.
He used a cane.
I stayed beside him without touching.
Halfway down, he stopped.
“Mara.”
“What?”
“I owe you an apology.”
“You already apologized.”
“No. I apologized for the sachet.”
He took a slow breath.
“I treated everyone around me like a resource. Security. Staff. Doctors. Lawyers. I thought paying people meant I did not owe them vulnerability.”
I watched him carefully.
“And?”
“And then I asked you to hold me as if loneliness were another service I could purchase.”
I did not speak.
“I’m sorry.”
It was simple.
No excuses.
No dying-man defense.
I believed him.
“Thank you.”
He nodded.
We continued walking.
Then a nurse approached.
“Mr. Varelli?”
“Yes?”
“There’s someone asking to see Ms. Ellis.”
That was my last name.
My entire body went cold.
“Who?”
The nurse glanced at me.
“She says she’s your sister.”
My heart jumped.
“Rachel?”
Marco appeared immediately.
“No visitors were approved.”
The nurse paled.
“She showed ID.”
We hurried toward the waiting area.
My sister was there.
But she was not alone.
A man stood behind her with one hand near her back.
He wore an ordinary gray jacket.
Ordinary shoes.
Ordinary face.
Except Luca stopped walking.
“Down,” he said.
Everything happened in one second.
Marco moved.
The man reached into his jacket.
I pulled Rachel toward me.
Security tackled him before he cleared the weapon.
People screamed.
Nurses ran.
Luca stood in the center of the chaos, white-faced but upright.
The attacker was dragged away.
Rachel clung to me.
“What is happening?”
I held her.
“I’m sorry.”
She pulled back.
“For what?”
Before I could answer, Marco removed the attacker’s phone.
A single unsent text sat on the screen.
TARGET CONFIRMED.
MAID AND BOSS TOGETHER.
Rachel looked at me.
Then at Luca.
Then back at me.
May you like
“Mara,” she whispered.
“What did you get yourself into?”
