Chapter 1 - The Secret in Her Shoes
Every morning at exactly eight o’clock, nobody in the Falcone mansion was allowed to make a sound near the breakfast room.
Not the housekeepers.
Not the cooks.
Not the guards stationed outside the eastern hall.
And certainly not the six-year-old daughter of the most feared man in Chicago.
Lucia Falcone, however, had never been particularly impressed by rules.
Especially when she found something interesting.
That morning, the interesting thing was a pair of shoes.
They belonged to Elena Carter, the newest maid at the estate.
The shoes had once been black.
Nobody knew exactly what color they were anymore.
The leather around the toes had faded gray. The left heel leaned slightly inward. Near the right sole, three tiny stitches held together a crack that looked as if one more rainy day might finally finish the job.
Elena always walked carefully in them.
Not because they were uncomfortable.
Because she was afraid someone might notice what was inside.
She had been working at the Falcone estate for nineteen days, and in those nineteen days, she had never removed her shoes in front of another person.
Not once.
When the marble floors were being polished, she cleaned around her own feet.
When the other maids changed into slippers during their lunch break, Elena kept hers on.
And when the seamstress offered to repair them, Elena smiled politely and said she could manage.
Lucia noticed everything.
Children often did.
She was sitting beneath the enormous dining table that morning, coloring the back of a menu with a purple marker, when Elena walked past carrying a silver tray.
Lucia looked at the tray.
Then at Elena.
Then at the shoes.
Her nose wrinkled.
“Miss Elena?”
Elena stopped.
“Yes, sweetheart?”
Lucia pointed.
“Are those your real shoes?”
Two maids near the kitchen entrance immediately looked away.
Elena's fingers tightened around the tray.
“Yes.”
Lucia crawled out from beneath the table and walked closer.
She stared at the cracked leather with the serious concentration of a child examining something she had never seen before.
“They're ugly.”
One of the maids covered her mouth.
Elena forced a small smile.
“I know.”
“Why don't you get new ones?”
Elena lowered her eyes.
“Because these still work.”
Lucia frowned.
“That doesn't make sense.”
“It doesn't have to.”
The little girl tilted her head.
Then she crouched.
Elena instinctively stepped backward.
That tiny movement made Lucia stop.
She looked up.
“Why won't you let me see them?”
Elena's face changed.
Only for a second.
Fear.
Then it disappeared.
“Because there's nothing to see.”
Lucia opened her mouth.
But before she could ask another question, a deep voice came from the doorway.
“Lucia.”
Everyone froze.
Matteo Falcone stood beneath the archway.
Black suit.
Black tie.
One hand resting loosely against the doorframe.
He had been listening.
The room became so quiet that Elena could hear the faint ticking of the grandfather clock behind her.
Lucia turned.
“Daddy.”
Matteo's eyes moved from his daughter to Elena.
Then down.
To the shoes.
He noticed the same thing Lucia had noticed.
But unlike his daughter, Matteo had spent his entire life learning that people rarely hid things without a reason.
“Why,” he asked quietly, “are you afraid of my daughter looking at your shoes?”
Elena swallowed.
“I'm not, sir.”
Matteo took one step forward.
Elena took one step back.
His eyes narrowed.
Then something beneath Elena's right shoe made a tiny metallic sound against the marble.
Click.
Matteo stopped.
So did Elena.
Lucia looked down.
“What was that?”
Elena's face went completely white.
Matteo stared at the shoe.
Then at her.
His voice became colder.
“Take it off.”
Elena shook her head.
“No.”
Nobody in the room breathed.
Matteo had heard gunfire without blinking.
He had watched men lie to his face while knowing they were about to die.
But he had never seen a maid look at him with that much fear over a pair of broken shoes.
“Why?” he asked.
Elena whispered,
“Because if you see what's inside…”
She stopped.
Matteo's gaze hardened.
“If I see what's inside what?”
Elena closed her eyes.
And for the first time since she had entered the Falcone mansion, the poor maid looked less afraid of losing her job than she was of being discovered.
“I'll lose the only thing I have left.”
Lucia looked at her father.
Then at Elena.
May you like
And whispered,
“Daddy… I think she's crying.”
