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“Hello, Green Eye Girl,” Damien said in that same toneless voice, moving a piece. “Are her eyes really the color of forests?”
“Why don’t you see for yourself?” Dante dared him and looked at the board.
Damien glanced up at her, his dark eyes fleetingly coming to hers for two seconds, before he looked back at the board again, tapping his foot on the ground in sets of three.
Dante looked at him in surprise, before glancing at her. “He looked you in the eye.”
Amara felt a little awkward but amused. Before she could say anything, the gardener called her from the back. She said her goodbyes and ran back, happy for the escape from his company.
It was the noise that made her do it.
There was a party at the mansion celebrating something, and it was an all-hands-on-deck kind of event. Since it was the weekend, she had pitched in to help out her mother and run around getting everything organized. Parties were the worst to execute. It left her mother so tired afterward, and the idiot Maronis didn’t have the bright idea of hiring someone to split duties with her mother. Not like they couldn’t afford it.
Amara walked down the mansion’s corridor, her hands full of crisp, white, freshly laundered, and ironed sheets when she heard the noise.
After the last time she’d seen something she shouldn’t have, Amara really didn’t want to investigate. There was no sense borrowing trouble, and the mansion was creepy enough as it was when it was empty.
Determined to ignore it, Amara started on her way when the noise came again, halting her in her tracks. It came from behind one of the closed doors.
Amara looked up and down the corridor, trying to see if anyone was coming that way. It was the third floor and it was deserted.
Taki
ng a deep breath, she put the clothes on a table by the wall, nudging a crystal vase aside. Who the hell kept a crystal vase on the third floor in an abandoned corridor? Crazy rich people.
Hushed voices came from behind the door, and Amara tiptoed forward, bending down to peek inside the keyhole.
Mr. Maroni, the older Mr. Maroni, stood over a man, a gun held to his temple.
“Will you give your masters the message or should I send one with your body?” he asked quietly as the man in the chair whimpered. That was the noise she’d heard. Whimpering.
Amara felt her heartbeat in her throat as she cast a quick look around the corridor again, ensuring it was empty, before watching what was happening inside. She saw Mr. Maroni’s brother – or was he the cousin? – come into view, his back to Amara’s vantage.
“I think we should talk to them ourselves, Lorenzo,” he spoke in a gravelly voice that sent a shiver down Amara’s spine. “The Syndicate won’t care if this cunt goes missing, not if they get their delivery on time.”
“I want in, Leo,” Lorenzo Maroni said. “It’s been years since they stopped us. X says we can try again and I want it to be a powerful message. Would he deliver that message alive or dead?”
“I think you should talk to X,” Leo suggested.
The man in the chair cried out. “You know that’s not how they do things. After what happened with your first shipment, they won’t let you. You messed up and now rumors say your son…”
“…is out of the picture,” Lorenzo Maroni stated with finality. “Dante can never know about this.”
Know what?
His cousin spoke again. “The shipment will go out in three days from the old warehouse, with or without him. We don’t need this guy.”
There was silence in the room. Amara barely dared to breathe, her hands gripping the side of the doorframe so she didn’t lose her balance. She should go. She really should. But her feet stayed glued to the spot, her one eye looking into the room.
“Let’s send him back with the message,” Lorenzo Maroni nodded, before suddenly pointing the gun at the man’s shoulder and pulling the trigger.
The loud noise ricocheted in the room, startling Amara. A yelp left her before she could stop it. Clapping a hand over her mouth, she stumbled back from the door, hurriedly picking up the laundry and running down the hallway. Her heart hammered in her chest as she heard the door behind her open, and she sprinted down the stairs, her feet going as fast as they could.
One floor down.
Two floors down.
Amara hit the ground level and ran to the kitchen, the area bustling with staff getting everything ready for the party. Shoving the laundry in the hands of one of the surprised servants, she ran down the gallery towards the back entrance.
