Chapter 8 - WHY MAVE WAS REALLY HIRED
Mave sat at her ruined kitchen table.
Leo stood near the window.
Neither spoke.
Three years.
That was how long Mave had worked for him.
Exactly how long Isabella claimed she had kept him alive.
Leo’s mind did what it always did under threat.
It searched.
Dates.
Names.
Movements.
Mave’s hiring.
Three years earlier, Leo’s previous housekeeper had quit suddenly.
A staffing agency sent Mave.
He had interviewed her for six minutes.
She had looked at a bloodstain near the basement stairs and said:
“That costs extra.”
He hired her immediately.
Now he asked:
“Which agency?”
Mave frowned.
“What?”
“The staffing agency that sent you.”
“Crown Domestic.”
Giani, standing near the doorway, checked his phone.
His face changed.
“Doesn’t exist anymore.”
Mave stared.
“What?”
“Registered three months before you were hired. Dissolved two weeks afterward.”
Leo went cold.
“Mave.”
She stood.
“I didn’t know.”
“I know.”
“You believe me?”
“Yes.”
No hesitation.
That mattered more than she expected.
Leo continued.
“Who interviewed you?”
“A woman named Lillian Shaw.”
Giani searched.
“No record.”
Mave felt sick.
“So someone placed me in your house.”
“Yes.”
“Isabella.”
“Probably.”
Mave laughed once.
“Wonderful. I thought my worst employment decision was agreeing to clean a basement with blood in it.”
Leo looked at her.
“Technically, that remains high on the list.”
She glared.
Then smiled despite herself.
They reconstructed Mave’s first months.
Nothing obvious.
She cleaned.
Cooked occasionally.
Organized staff.
Argued with Leo about leaving guns on dining tables.
Then Mave remembered.
“Your coffee.”
Leo frowned.
“What about it?”
“You were sick.”
“When?”
“Two weeks after I started.”
He remembered.
Severe nausea.
Dizziness.
A doctor blamed food poisoning.
Mave had thrown away an entire bag of imported coffee because she thought it smelled strange.
Leo slowly looked at her.
“Where did that coffee come from?”
“Delivery.”
Giani checked archived security logs.
The supplier had been changed one week before Mave began.
Company no longer existed.
Mave’s face went white.
“They were poisoning you.”
“Possibly.”
“And I threw it out.”
“Yes.”
“Because it smelled stale.”
Leo almost laughed.
Mave stared at him.
“Your mother planted me in your house and accidentally hired the woman who ruined her murder attempt.”
“That appears to be the situation.”
“That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“It explains why she said you kept me alive.”
Giani found another incident.
A gas leak in the lower kitchen.
Mave had called maintenance because she complained the stove “smelled like death.”
A tampered brake line on Leo’s Mercedes had been discovered after Mave borrowed the car without permission to move it during cleaning and noticed fluid beneath it.
“You stole my car,” Leo said.
“I moved it twelve feet.”
“You prevented my assassination.”
“Then you’re welcome.”
Another incident.
A package Mave refused to bring into the study because the courier “looked creepy.”
Security later destroyed it after discovering explosives.
Leo stared at her.
Three years.
Three attempts.
Mave had interrupted all of them without knowing.
Leo began laughing.
Not softly.
Actually laughing.
Mave looked offended.
“What?”
“My mother hired you to observe me.”
“Yes.”
“And you have accidentally sabotaged every attempt she made to kill me.”
“I’m very thorough.”
“You are.”
The laughter disappeared slowly.
Then he looked at her with an expression that made her chest tighten.
“What?”
“I thought I kept you safe.”
Mave understood.
“In reality…”
“You kept me alive.”
She looked away.
“That feels dramatic.”
“It is.”
“You’ll become unbearable.”
“Already there.”
Carmine entered carrying takeout pizza.
“We found Renato’s package.”
Everyone turned.
“What?”
“The thief dropped part of it in the alley behind Mave’s building.”
Inside a torn envelope was a small voice recorder.
Renato’s final message.
Leo pressed play.
His uncle’s voice was weak.
Leo, if you hear this, Isabella found me. I don’t have much time. Your mother intends to sell the port and disappear. But she made one mistake. She trusts lawyers more than family. Her attorney, Peter Vale, keeps duplicate authorization files at his office. Those files prove she forged your signatures.
Mave leaned closer.
The recording continued.
Do not trust August completely. He knew more than he admitted. But he did try to stop Isabella after Luca died. That is why she poisoned him slowly.
Leo froze.
“Poisoned?”
Mave looked at him.
August’s health.
Weakness.
Oxygen.
Apparent age-related decline.
Maybe not natural.
Renato continued.
Isabella has been paying his private nurse for two years.
Leo grabbed his phone.
August was still hospitalized.
He called the federal team guarding him.
No answer.
Again.
No answer.
Giani called the hospital.
Then turned pale.
“August’s nurse signed him out twenty minutes ago.”
Leo stared.
“Where?”
“No destination.”
Mave whispered, “Isabella has him.”
The story changed again.
Isabella was not fleeing yet.
She was gathering leverage.
August.
The forged records.
Possibly Mave.
Leo looked toward her.
“No.”
She frowned.
“What?”
“You’re leaving.”
“Excuse me?”
“You go into federal protection tonight.”
“No.”
“Mave.”
“You don’t get to suddenly become stupid because we kissed once.”
“I am not risking you.”
“And I’m not disappearing while you walk into a trap.”
“This is not a discussion.”
“It became one when you gave me chamomile tea.”
“That sentence makes no sense.”
“It does to me.”
Carmine slowly backed toward the door with the pizza.
Giani followed.
Leo pointed.
“Stay.”
Carmine stopped.
Mave crossed her arms.
“I am not leaving.”
Leo lowered his voice.
“If Isabella takes you, I will give her whatever she asks for.”
Mave went still.
That was exactly the problem.
He continued.
“The ports. The company. Evidence. Everything.”
Her anger vanished.
“Leo.”
“I know what I am.”
“No.”
“I know what I become when someone I care about is threatened.”
Mave stepped closer.
“Then learn something new.”
He stared.
“You don’t protect me by removing my choices.”
His face tightened.
“That is not fair.”
“It’s exactly fair.”
She took his hand.
“I will use protection. I will follow plans. I will not wander alone into abandoned docks because, apparently, I needed that lesson.”
“Good.”
“But I am not leaving because you’re afraid.”
Leo looked down at their joined hands.
Then nodded once.
It was not agreement he enjoyed.
That made it more meaningful.
The next morning, Peter Vale—the attorney Renato named—was found dead in his office.
His files were gone.
Another apparent dead end.
Then police found a handwritten appointment on his calendar.
M.B. — 9:30. Bring originals.
Mave frowned.
“M.B.”
Leo looked at her.
“Maeve Bennett.”
“But I never contacted him.”
“No.”
Someone had been planning to frame her.
Again.
Giani searched building cameras.
At 9:17 the previous morning, a blonde woman entered Vale’s office wearing sunglasses.
Mave stared at the image.
“That’s not me.”
“No.”
Then the woman turned toward the camera.
Leo stopped.
He knew her.
So did Mave.
It was Lillian Shaw.
The nonexistent staffing agent who had hired Mave three years earlier.
And beside her, reflected in the elevator mirror, stood another man.
Ryan Hale.
Leo’s personal attorney.
The man who had managed every contract in Leo’s organization for eleven years.
The man currently holding legal authority to sell the port if Leo died.
Leo stared at the screen.
“We found Isabella’s lawyer.”
Mave shook her head.
“No.”
“What?”
“We found someone helping her.”
She pointed at Ryan’s reflection.
“If Isabella trusted him enough to fake your death paperwork, why would she need Peter Vale?”
Leo’s expression changed.
Mave continued.
“Maybe Vale wasn’t her lawyer.”
“Then whose?”
Before anyone answered, Leo’s company phone rang.
Ryan Hale.
Leo answered.
“Ryan.”
The attorney sounded panicked.
“Leo, don’t trust the FBI team around you.”
Leo glanced toward Giani.
“Why?”
“Because Peter Vale was a federal informant.”
Silence.
“And your mother knows Mave has the original ledger.”
Leo’s grip tightened.
“How?”
“Someone inside your protection detail told her.”
Another betrayal.
Ryan continued.
“You have to get out.”
“Where are you?”
“My office.”
Leo looked at Giani.
Giani silently checked the GPS.
Then shook his head.
Ryan’s phone was not at his office.
Leo spoke carefully.
“Ryan.”
“What?”
“If you’re at your office, what can you see outside your window?”
Silence.
Then the line disconnected.
Giani traced the signal.
Mave watched his face.
“Where?”
He turned the screen.
Lake George.
Isabella’s estate.
May you like
Ryan wasn’t warning Leo about the trap.
He was already inside it.
