Chapter 2 - THE INTERRUPTED TRANSACTION
CLANG!
The heavy steel bucket hit the marble floor with a deafening, metallic crash that echoed off the glass walls of the boardroom like a gunshot.
Twenty gallons of dirty, grey bleach water, soapy foam, and dissolved blood instantly rushed across the polished floorboards, surging in a dark wave under the mahogany table and soaking directly into the Italian leather shoes of Gregory Volk and Vincent Rossi.
Every man in the room jumped.
Hands flew beneath tailored jackets. Four armed guards standing near the doors drew their weapons in a fraction of a second, their gun barrels instantly pointing at the woman kneeling on the floor.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Vincent roared, jumping backward as the dirty water splashed across his custom leather loafers. He drew a small, silver-plated pistol from his waistband, his face red with sudden, aristocratic fury. “You stupid, clumsy bitch! Shoot her!”
“Hold,” Dominic barked.
The single word cut through the room like a steel guillotine. The guards froze, their fingers lingering on their triggers, but their eyes shifted to Dominic.
Maeve remained on her knees in the middle of the soapy flood. Her hands were wet, her uniform was soaked, and her heart was beating so fast she could taste copper on her tongue. But she didn't cringe. She slowly raised her head, looking past the gun barrels, past Vincent’s furious face, until her eyes locked directly into Dominic Rossi’s pale grey gaze.
“You dropped your bucket,” Dominic said quietly, his voice dangerously level.
“I didn't drop it, Mr. Rossi,” Maeve said. Her voice was thin, but it didn't tremble. “I knocked it over.”
Dominic’s dark eyebrows rose slightly. “Is that so? And why would a cleaning woman destroy my rug and interrupt a fifty-million-dollar negotiation?”
“Because if you sign that paper,” Maeve said, pointing a red, water-stained finger at the Montblanc pen on the table, “your brother Anthony dies in Warehouse 4 on the docks in thirty-five minutes, and your uncle takes your seat before the sun comes up.”
The boardroom went dead silent.
Vincent’s face went from furious red to a ghastly, pale white in less than two seconds. “She’s crazy!” he shrieked, raising his silver pistol directly at Maeve’s head. “She’s a high lunatic! She’s an addict we hired off the street to mop the floors! Clear her out of here!”
“Vincent,” Dominic said, his voice dropping an octave. “Put the gun down.”
“Dominic, she’s interrupting—”
“Put the gun down, Uncle,” Dominic repeated, each word laced with absolute, lethal authority.
Vincent swallowed hard, his hand shaking as he slowly lowered his weapon, though his eyes remained fixed on Maeve with pure, murderous hatred.
Dominic turned his full attention to Maeve. He stood up from his leather chair, stepped around the mahogany table, and walked straight through the puddle of dirty bleach water, his expensive leather boots crunching over the wet floorboards until he stopped two feet from where she knelt.
He leaned down, resting his elbows on his knees, bringing his face level with hers. Up close, Maeve could smell his cologne—expensive tobacco, crushed cedar, and the sharp, cold scent of iron.
“What did you say your name was?” Dominic asked gently.
“Maeve,” she replied, looking him dead in the eye. “Maeve Nolan.”
“Maeve,” Dominic repeated, testing the weight of her name. “You are a cleaning woman. You carry a mop. You wipe my grease off the glass. How do you know about Warehouse 4?”
“Because the giant built like a refrigerator across from you just said it,” Maeve answered, gesturing toward Gregory Volk.
Gregory was staring at Maeve in utter shock. He didn't understand her English, but he recognized the tone of a confession when he heard one. He spat a torrent of furious Russian dialect at his two bodyguards standing behind him.
Maeve didn't wait for a translation. She looked directly at Dominic and spoke in a clear, fluent, clipped Russian accent:
“He is telling his guards to get ready to shoot their way out to the elevator because the house maid has a big mouth,” Maeve translated instantly into English.
Dominic’s eyes widened by a fraction of a millimeter.
Before Gregory’s bodyguards could reach inside their coats, Dominic’s four personal guards fired.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
The suppressed gunshots sounded like heavy textbook slams against wood. Gregory’s two bodyguards collapsed onto the wet floorboards, their weapons skittering across the marble into the puddle of grey water.
Gregory Volk let out a furious bellow and tried to stand, but Dominic moved with terrifying speed. He reached across the table, grabbed Gregory by his thick silk necktie, and smashed the Russian’s face directly down into the mahogany table.
CRACK!
Gregory’s nose shattered against the wood. Blood burst from his face, staining the legal documents. Dominic held him there, pressing his heavy weight onto Gregory’s neck, while pulling a combat knife from his belt with his free hand and driving the steel blade three inches deep into the center of Gregory’s left palm, pinning his hand directly to the table!
Gregory screamed—a high, agonized shriek that filled the glass room.
Dominic didn't even look at the screaming Russian. He kept his eyes fixed entirely on Maeve.
“Go on, Maeve,” Dominic said, his breath steady, his hand holding the handle of the knife embedded in Gregory’s hand. “What else did Gregory say?”
Maeve took a deep breath, her hands resting on the wet floor.
“He didn't speak Russian when he mentioned your uncle,” Maeve explained, her voice remarkably clear despite the dead bodies laying three feet away from her. “He switched to a rural Southern Neapolitan dialect from the Apennine mountains. He told your uncle that the keys to Warehouse 4 were already used, that the kerosene was poured, and that if you didn't sign over the Newark shipping manifests by three in the morning, his men would drop a match through the window while your brother Anthony was locked inside a metal shipping container.”
Dominic’s gaze slowly shifted from Maeve to his uncle Vincent.
Vincent was backed up against the dark glass wall, his hands raised in front of his chest, sweating so profusely that his pomaded silver hair was plastered to his forehead.
“Dominic... Dominic, listen to me!” Vincent stuttered, his voice cracking into a high-pitched panic. “She’s lying! She’s a plant! The rival families hired her to turn us against each other! How could a cleaning woman know a obscure mountain dialect from Southern Italy? It’s impossible! She’s a spy!”
Dominic looked back down at Maeve.
“It is a valid question, Maeve,” Dominic said softly. “How does a woman who mops my floors for fifteen dollars an hour speak three languages in five minutes?”
Maeve wiped a speck of bleach water from her cheek.
“Eight languages, Mr. Rossi,” Maeve corrected him quietly. “I speak eight. And I learned them because my mother worked eighty hours a week in immigrant shelters, dockyards, and legal clinics while I sat on the floor with a coloring book. Invisible people hear everything, Mr. Rossi. Because men like your uncle never bother to look down before they start talking about who they’re going to kill.”
Dominic stared at her for three long seconds.
Then, for the first time since Maeve had entered the room six hours ago, a faint, dark smile appeared on the boss’s face.
“Eight,” Dominic whispered.
May you like
He stood up, leaving the knife sticking out of Gregory Volk’s hand, and turned slowly toward his uncle Vincent.
“Vincent,” Dominic said calmly. “Tell me in Neapolitan... how much was Gregory paying you for my brother’s life?”
