Chapter 1 - The Blood in the Kitchen Sink
Footsteps on marble at 3:00 in the morning usually meant a breach.
Vincent Costa drew his Glock before he had even cleared the staircase.
But the intruder was not a hitman.
It was Charmian, his new maid, scrubbing a single pan until her knuckles bled.
Vincent watched from the shadows and saw the swollen purple bruise she was trying to hide.
He already knew she had not been to class in 3 days.
By sunrise, he intended to know exactly who had put their hands on someone who worked under his roof.
Silence inside the Costa estate was rare.
The sprawling fortified compound in the hills had been built on decades of racketeering and blood money. Usually there was always some sound moving through it: the static hiss of earpieces, tires crunching over gravel, the distant impact of a basement door closing.
At 3:00 a.m. on Tuesday, the house was still.
Vincent was not.
Sleep had never been something his mind gave him easily.
He sat in the darkness of his bedroom with a glass of amber liquor sweating onto a leather coaster and listened.
He knew the sounds of the estate the way a mechanic knew an engine.
Wind pressing against reinforced windows.
The hum of central air.
Then a scrape.
Faint.
From the West Wing.
The kitchens.
Vincent did not bother putting on a shirt.
He took the Glock 19 from his nightstand and moved barefoot into the hallway.
He had survived 3 assassination attempts before his 30th birthday. The habits that kept him alive had become instinct.
He descended the main staircase with his back near the wall, scanning darkness and negative space as he approached the arched entrance to the kitchen.
The room beyond was a sterile fantasy of stainless steel and white marble.
The overhead lights were off.
Only the amber light above the range created a small pool of illumination around the farmhouse sink.
Someone stood inside it.
Vincent lowered the gun slightly.
Charmian.
She had been hired roughly 1 month earlier through the housekeeper.
19 years old.
Quiet.
Unremarkable in the standard gray estate uniform.
She worked weekends and Tuesday afternoons while paying her way through a local community college.
She was not supposed to be standing in his kitchen at 3:00 a.m.
Vincent remained in shadow and watched.
Charmian was scrubbing a heavy frying pan.
Not washing it.
Attacking it.
Her shoulders jerked with every hard rotation of the sponge.
Steam poured from the sink because the water was nearly scalding.
Her hair had been gathered into a messy bun, and damp brown strands clung to her face.
She was not wearing her uniform.
Only an oversized gray hoodie and worn jeans.
Vincent narrowed his eyes.
Then deliberately stepped hard enough for her to hear him.
Charmian gasped.
The pan slipped from her hands and crashed into the stainless-steel sink.
She spun around, her back striking the counter.
Her breathing came hard and fast.
Her eyes moved wildly before finding him.
“Mr. Costa.”
Her voice broke around his name.
Vincent stepped into the light and slid the Glock into the waistband of his sweatpants.
For the first time since hiring her, he looked at her closely.
She was shaking.
Not nervous trembling.
A deep, uncontrolled shudder.
Her left cheekbone was swollen and mottled with yellow and dark purple.
Her lower lip was split.
Dried blood remained at the corner of her mouth.
Then he saw her hands.
Charmian held them awkwardly in front of her stomach.
The knuckles on her right hand were raw and split, bleeding slowly into the water still dripping from her fingers.
“You’re making a mess.”
His voice offered no comfort.
Charmian flinched and hurriedly wiped her wet hands against her hoodie, leaving a dark stain.
“I’m sorry, sir. I was just—”
“Cleaning?”
Vincent moved toward the island.
“At 3:00 in the morning?”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“Neither could I.”
He stopped several feet from her.
“I don’t scrub cast iron until my hands bleed.”
Charmian lowered her eyes.
“I wanted to get ahead on tomorrow’s chores. Mrs. Gable said the kitchen needed a deep clean.”
The lie was poor.
Vincent had built an empire by recognizing lies.
He saw her jaw tighten.
Saw the glance toward the staff entrance.
“Look at me.”
It was not a request.
Charmian hesitated, then slowly lifted her face.
The range light caught the swelling beneath her eye.
Up close, she looked younger.
Smaller.
But there was a stubbornness beneath the fear.
She was afraid of Vincent.
She was also accustomed to fear.
He could tell.
“Who hit you?”
“Nobody.”
“Who?”
“I fell.”
“You fell.”
“Yes.”
“On your face.”
“Yes.”
“And your knuckles fell too?”
Charmian crossed her arms tightly.
“I was carrying groceries. I tripped on the curb outside my apartment.”
She swallowed.
“It’s nothing, Mr. Costa. I promise it won’t affect my work.”
Vincent stared at her.
He was not sentimental.
His syndicate controlled docks, unions, and a significant portion of the state’s narcotics traffic.
People were hurt every day.
People bled every day.
Most of them were not his concern.
But Charmian was standing inside his house.
Bleeding into his sink.
Lying directly to him.
Vincent hated disorder.
He particularly hated discovering that something under his protection had been damaged by someone outside his control.
“Go to the bathroom down the hall.”
Charmian looked up.
“Clean your face. Bandage your hands.”
His voice remained flat.
“If I see you scrubbing another pan tonight, you’re fired.”
She blinked.
“Yes, sir.”
Then, quietly:
“Thank you.”
Charmian moved past him with a wide berth.
Vincent watched her go.
She favored her left leg.
Barely.
A limp she was trying to conceal.
When the hallway door shut, Vincent returned to the sink.
Something pale blue had been pushed toward the drain beneath the water.
He reached in and pulled it free.
A polo shirt.
The uniform from St. Jude’s College.
Charmian’s school.
It had been soaked in water and dish soap.
Rust-colored stains still covered the chest and collar.
Blood.
A great deal of it.
Vincent released the shirt back into the sink.
May you like
Turned off the faucet.
Then stood alone inside the silent kitchen.
