The Mafia Boss Found His Most Loyal Maid Broken on the Floor — Then Her Secret Brother Called, and Everything Changed

Rhett climbed through the kitchen window with Isa in his arms while Anton covered the corridor. The metal stairs groaned beneath their weight. Below them, a black sedan sat at the curb with its engine running.

“That's not ours,” Anton said.

Two men emerged from the building's main entrance. One wore a baseball cap pulled low over his face. The other held a phone and scanned the windows.

The man with the phone looked up.

“There!”

Rhett moved.

He descended the final flight, reached the narrow alley, and pushed Isa into the back of the Mercedes. Anton climbed in beside her, weapon ready. Rhett slid behind the wheel and accelerated before the pursuing men could reach their car.

A gunshot struck the rear window.

Glass burst across the seats.

Isa flinched even though she was barely conscious. Rhett covered her head with his arm and drove through the next intersection, cutting between two delivery trucks before turning sharply into traffic.

“Sir,” Anton said, “we need to lose them.”

“I know how to lose a tail.”

Rhett took three unfamiliar turns, crossed beneath an elevated railway, and entered the underground garage of a private medical clinic owned by a physician who had treated the Valon family for twenty years.

Dr. Mercer was waiting.

He examined Isa in a secured treatment room while Rhett stood outside, his shirt spotted with her blood. He had washed blood from his hands before, but never had it seemed so impossible to remove.

Marcus arrived twenty minutes later.

“Where is she?”

Rhett turned.

Marcus stopped at the sight of his employer's expression.

“Tell me something,” Rhett said. “How did the people who attacked Isa know I would come to her apartment?”

“I don't know.”

“Someone gave them her address. Someone knew she was there. Someone knew I would be looking for her.”

Marcus's face tightened. “You think I told them?”

“I think people who work for me are either loyal, stupid, or dangerous. I haven't decided which you are.”

Before Marcus could answer, Dr. Mercer opened the treatment-room door.

“She has two cracked ribs, a concussion, and significant bruising. She's lost blood, but the injuries aren't immediately life-threatening. She needs rest and careful monitoring.”

“Can she be moved?”

“Not for several hours.”

Rhett glanced through the open doorway.

Isa lay beneath a clean white blanket, an IV attached to her arm. Without her usual neat uniform and quiet composure, she looked younger. More fragile.

He hated that word.

Fragile people were broken by the world. Isa had spent three years moving through his dangerous household as though nothing could touch her.

And somebody had proved him wrong.

“She stays here,” Rhett said. “Double the security. Nobody enters that room without my authorization.”

Dr. Mercer nodded and returned inside.

Rhett's phone vibrated.

A message from an unknown number contained a photograph.

Isa sat at the breakfast counter in his mansion, three months earlier, reading the morning newspaper. In the reflection of the dark window behind her, a man stood watching.

Conrad Valon.

Under the photograph were six words.

Ask her what she stole from you.

Rhett read the message twice.

Then he looked through the glass at Isa.

Her eyes were open.

She had been watching him.

“You saw the message,” he said as he entered.

Isa looked away.

“What did you steal?”

“Nothing.”

“Someone beat you badly enough to leave you bleeding on your own kitchen floor. They knew where to find you, and they knew I would come. My uncle's name was mentioned in the call from your brother. Now someone sends me a photograph of you inside my house.”

She closed her eyes.

“Isa.”

“Please.”

It was the first time she had ever begged him for anything.

Rhett drew a chair beside the bed. “Tell me the truth.”

She stared at the blanket for a long time.

“My name is Isadora Voss.”

“Your brother said Isa.”

“It's short for Isadora.”

“You told my household your last name was Bell.”

“Because Voss is a name that gets people killed.”

“And your brother?”

“He was supposed to be dead.”

Rhett leaned forward. “According to whom?”

“According to you.”

The room seemed to lose its air.

Isa lifted her eyes to his.

“Eight years ago, your father died in the warehouse fire on North Canal Street. My father died there too. Your family said Elias had betrayed both men and caused the fire. They said his body was found inside the building.”

“I remember.”

“No, Mr. Valon. You remember what your uncle told you.”

Rhett stood so abruptly that the chair scraped the floor.

“Careful.”

“Why? Because I'm questioning the great Rhett Valon?” Her voice was weak, but something fierce had entered her eyes. “You want the truth? I came into your house to find out what happened that night.”

“You spent three years working for me to investigate my family?”

“I spent three years trying to find the records your uncle buried.”

“What records?”

Isa swallowed.

“The original ledger from the warehouse. The one your father kept hidden.”

Rhett stared at her.

His father had maintained a private ledger for years, a record of every payment made through the family's construction businesses. After his death, the ledger had vanished. Conrad had insisted that it was destroyed in the fire.

Rhett had believed him.

“Where is it now?” he demanded.

Isa looked toward the window.

“That's why they came for me.”

“Where is it?”

“Somewhere your uncle will never look.”

Before Rhett could press her further, the lights in the treatment room flickered.

A distant alarm began to sound.

Anton appeared at the door, pale and furious.

“Boss, we've got a problem.”

“What?”

“Someone has accessed the clinic's security system. Every camera is down.”