Chapter 1 - The Wheelchair at the Edge
The first thing Elena Brooks heard was the scream of wheels on polished marble.
The second was a woman's voice, sharpened by hatred.
“YOU'RE WORTHLESS NOW!
JUST DISAPPEAR!”
From the side corridor, Elena saw Celeste Vale drive both hands into the handles of Luca Moretti's black wheelchair.
The chair shot across the upper landing of the mansion's grand staircase, the silver frame glinting beneath crystal chandeliers.
At the end of the landing, the cream-colored floor simply disappeared into thirty steep marble steps.
Luca's hands locked around the armrests beneath the charcoal blanket covering his legs.
His face was white, but his gray eyes did not close.
Elena knew there was no time to call for help, no time to reason with the woman in the wine-red gown, and no time to wonder why a fiancée would try to kill the man she intended to marry.
She ran.
Her black non-slip shoes struck the floor in a frantic rhythm as she came out of the hallway.
She threw herself to her knees, sliding over the marble, and caught the lower wheelchair frame with both hands.
The momentum dragged her toward the stairwell.
Her apron scraped against the stone, and pain shot from her knees to her hips.
Elena planted her shoes against the floor and hauled backward with every ounce of strength she possessed.
The wheelchair stopped with its front wheels inches from the uppermost step.
A loosened thread from her apron hung over the empty stairwell.
She could hear her own breathing, broken and raw.
For one second the entire Chicago mansion was as silent as a church after a funeral.
Then Celeste spoke from behind them.
“You stupid girl.”
Elena turned just enough to see the woman's diamond earrings tremble.
Celeste was thirty-four, beautiful in a way that belonged on magazine covers, with platinum curls falling against the satin of her expensive dress.
She had spent months performing the role of a loving fiancée to visitors while treating the servants like disposable furniture.
Now the mask had slipped completely.
“You had no right to interfere,” Celeste said.
Elena did not release the chair.
“He would have gone down those stairs.”
“That was an accident.”
“Your hands were on the handles.”
Celeste's mouth tightened.
“Be careful what you accuse me of in my own home.”
Elena stared at her.
The mansion was not Celeste's home to command, at least not yet, and Luca Moretti had employed the household staff long before his fiancée arrived.
Still, Elena knew what Celeste could do to anyone who defied her.
She had witnessed cooks fired over misplaced cutlery and drivers punished for traffic delays.
Elena's younger brother depended on the wages she sent home every month.
She could not afford to lose her job.
Yet she could not look at those stairs and wish she had remained in the hallway.
“ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL HIM?!”
she demanded.
She reached down to set the locks on both large rear wheels, checking that the chair rested securely on level ground.
Luca remained silent.
That frightened her almost as much as Celeste's attack.
The man was forty-three, broad-shouldered, with black hair marked by silver at the temples and a reputation capable of clearing a restaurant without a shouted order.
But since his automobile accident, everyone had spoken to him as if he were a broken monument to his former power.
Some called him Chicago's mafia king in whispers.
Others called him a businessman with connections nobody dared investigate too closely.
Elena simply knew him as a man who thanked the kitchen staff by name and never raised his voice to frighten a housekeeper.
She looked up at him.
“Mr. Moretti, can you hear me?”
He nodded once.
“Move back from the edge, Elena.”
“I've locked the wheels.”
“I know.”
His calmness sounded impossible.
Celeste stepped toward them, and Elena rose between her and the chair.
“You are finished here,” Celeste announced.
“I'll have security throw you onto the street before midnight.”
“Then let them come,” Elena answered.
Celeste lifted an open hand and lunged toward her.
Elena braced for the slap.
Instead, the charcoal-gray blanket snapped upward like a dark flag.
It landed beside a gold-trimmed column, leaving Luca's legs exposed beneath his black tailored suit.
He placed both polished shoes firmly on the marble.
Elena's mouth fell open.
For months she had watched nurses assist him, seen his wheelchair lifted into vehicles, and heard Celeste complain that he would never again climb a staircase.
He put both hands on the armrests and pushed himself upward.
It was neither effortless nor magical.
His jaw tightened, a muscle flickered near his right knee, and for a heartbeat he looked like a man confronting an old wound.
Then he stood.
Tall and steady, his shoulders rose above Celeste's.
The fiancée retreated half a step.
“No,” she whispered.
Luca did not look at Elena immediately.
He watched the woman who had just tried to send him to his death.
The silence between them held something older and darker than the last thirty seconds.
Celeste pointed at the abandoned wheelchair as if it were proof that reality had betrayed her.
“You can't.”
“I can,” Luca said.
“Not easily every morning, but well enough tonight.”
Elena could not decide whether to laugh, cry, or demand why he had allowed her to believe he needed the chair.
Her palms stung from grabbing the frame.
She had risked everything to save a man who could apparently stand.
But the chair had been moving too fast for even a healthy person to recover safely, and the marble stairs would not have forgiven a mistake.
Luca turned toward her at last.
“You saved my life.”
She stared at him.
“Then why didn't you tell anyone?”
He looked back at Celeste.
“Because someone was still trying to take it.”
Below them, on the ground floor, the chandelier lights reflected in the vast entrance windows overlooking Chicago.
At the end of the side hallway, a shadow moved.
Elena noticed it only briefly before a tall man in a black security suit stepped into view.
Marcus DeLuca, head of security, had a communication earpiece and a face that revealed almost nothing.
But he was not looking at the wheelchair.
He was looking at Celeste, as though he had been expecting this moment for a very long time.
May you like
Luca drew a careful breath.
“Now,” he said to his fiancée, “we are going to talk about the night I nearly died.”
