Chapter 14 - The Cleaning Girl’s Vengeance
I walked slowly across the gravel, my boots crunching rhythmically against the stone, stopping right in front of Julian where he knelt in the dirt, pale and sweating from shock.
I knelt down beside him, grabbed him by the expensive lapels of his charcoal suit, and yanked him upright so his face was inches from mine.
“You think you’re the first predator who tried to tear down my house?” I asked softly, my voice barely above a whisper. “You think a family name makes you invincible in Chicago?”
Julian stared at me, his eyes wide with stark, unadulterated terror. “Gallo... please... I have money... I have contacts—!”
“Keep your money,” I said, shoving him backward so hard he tumbled over onto his side.
I stood up and turned away, walking over to where Linda was still tied to her chair. I pulled my tactical knife from my belt and sliced through the heavy ropes binding her wrists in a single fluid motion.
Linda rubbed her raw, red wrists, immediately wrapping her arms around Keo, pulling him close, sobbing into his dark curls.
She looked up at me, her eyes shining with unshed tears, her cheek purple and swollen where Julian had struck her. Without a word of hesitation, Linda gently set Keo down behind a concrete pillar, stood up on shaking legs, and walked past me toward Julian.
Julian looked up, clutching his bleeding wrist, stammering in panic as the cleaning girl he had dismissed as a nobody approached him with cold, terrifying composure.
“What... what are you doing?” Julian choked out.
Linda didn't answer. She reached down, picked up Julian’s heavy revolver from the dirt, checked the slide with practiced precision—a motion she must have watched me perform a hundred times in my study—and pointed the barrel directly between his eyes.
Julian froze. His entire body went rigid. “Wait! You can’t—I’m a Maroni!”
“You’re nobody,” Linda said, her voice completely steady, echoing with the quiet power of a mother who had stared into the abyss and learned how to hold the knife.
She didn't pull the trigger. Instead, she brought the heavy butt of the revolver down with crushing force across Julian’s nose, sending him crashing backward into the gravel, unconscious before he even hit the ground.
Linda dropped the gun into the dirt, turned around, and walked back to me.
“Let’s go home, Mr. Gallo,” she said softly.
May you like
I looked down at her—at the bruises on her face, at the unyielding fire in her eyes—and realized for the absolute finality of it: she wasn't just my employee anymore.
She was my equal.
