Chapter 2 – The Weight of the Name
Silence in the corridor did not mean peace. It meant that each footstep echoed, that every breath had a listener, that the walls remembered more than anyone living did. Kira stood very still, her hand resting on the rough plaster as if the cold beneath her palm could anchor her to the mission. She had saved Lorenzo Windsor and in the same breath she had stepped into a different kind of danger. The chandelier had fallen. The guests had dispersed rattled and whispering. The house had a hundred eyes and now more than one of them had focused on Isabel Scott.
Lorenzo did not speak again. He did not need to. His order hung in the corridor with a gravity that made her bones ache. Report to him directly. Stay close. Those were not ordinary commands. They were keys that opened doors into private rooms, into late night calls, into secrets behind the family portraits. They were invitations that could become traps.
Kira slid a long slow breath out through her nose and put her suitcase beneath a bench. She had come here armed with plans and falsified papers and a new name that fit like a glove. She had not prepared for the way his presence would press against her. She had not prepared for the need to smile when someone who stood between her and revenge demanded her loyalty.
The next morning the mansion moved like a living thing waking from a nightmare. Servants arranged fresh flowers as if they could coax the social wound closed. Cooks burned through recipes with distracted hands. The head of household, Leonardo Windsor, had closed himself away in the study and summoned his private counsel. Rumors crawled along the marble like ants. Every whisper had danger sewn into it.
Kira reported to the servants quarters where Mr Gray assigned tasks with the same thin voice he used the night before. He watched her closely, the way a man who had seen one too many secrets watches a new arrival. He cleared his throat.
Mr Gray said, Begin with the west wing. The heir will take his meals privately for a few days. See to it that everything is in order. Leave the guest room key with me. Do not step beyond your duties.
Kira inclined her head. Yes, Mr Gray. She folded the apron at her waist, tightened the lace cap. She kept her voice even, the way she had been taught to keep herself invisible. Everything in her wanted to reach for Lorenzo, to ask why he had looked at her like that, to know whether the man who had so casually mocked someone at the banquet and then stood under a falling chandelier was the same man who would one day inherit an empire. Instead she clenched her jaw and bent to her tasks.
Being near him was a rasping thing. She watched him from the corner of her eye as he moved through the halls like a storm leaving a tidy trail. He wore his suit like armor yet his posture held a weight that belonged to someone who had been appointed to a role he did not want. When he passed the servants in silence they reacted the way a body reacts to a shadow. Some bowed deeper out of habit. Others hurried away with their heads lowered. He kept his gaze level and she saw the faint bruises of sleepless nights beneath his storm grey eyes.
Later that day he summoned her.
Lorenzo said, Come to the private dining room at six. Be ready to serve only my table.
The command was sharp and the way he said her name made the hair at the back of her neck stand up. It was not surprising that he wanted control now. He had been nearly killed. Paranoia would seep into the walls. Kira told herself she would not crumble. She would bend. She would learn. She would wait for the moment to strike.
At six she walked into a smaller room almost hidden behind a curtain of velvet. The table there had a single place set and a single bottle of wine uncorked. He sat with his back to a window that gave to the gardens, fingers drumming a pattern on the polished wood. His shirt sleeve was rolled back revealing the faint white scars near his wrist. He looked older than his years in that moment. He looked tired.
He said, You saved me from an accident. I owe you nothing. But I am not blind. The way you moved and the speed at which you acted suggest you are not simply another girl who cleans.
Kira kept her hands unmoving as she set down the plates. She said, I only did what any person would do if a life was in danger.
He watched her with a slow intensity and then he surprised her by smiling almost without humor. He said, Any person would not notice a loosened bolt above my head. Any person would not move with the surety you did. There were men trained for that. Why do you hide such sharpness in a maid uniform.
She felt the trap closing like a fist. This was dangerous territory. If she answered poorly he would push and pry until he found the fractures and then he could break her. If she remained silent he might grow suspicious and send someone else to test her. She tilted her chin and answered with a truth wrapped carefully in another truth.
Kira said, I have worked around fragility all my life. I have learned to see the things others miss.
He watched her longer. Then he said, Keep your eyes open and your feet steady. You will be assigned more closely to me. Learn now to take cues. I will know if you try to play games.
Being ordered to stay closer to him was both a blessing and a curse. Kira told herself it was a blessing because proximity was the raw material from which she could carve her revenge. She would be near him in the private hours when truth was sleepy and defenses thin. She would learn his habits, his fears, where he kept his receipts, who he trusted, which doors were left unlocked. She would be the quiet hand that loosened the screws on a legacy.
Yet every time he glanced in her direction something in her chest bruised with a tenderness she had not in
vited. She had trained herself to kill.