Chapter 2 - THE SHATTERED MANSION AND THE BLOODLINE SECRET"Get down!" Ethan roared, dropping instantly to the Persian rug, his hand flying to the concealed Glock under his suit jacket.
Bullets punched through the reinforced lead-glass windows like paper, chewing up expensive oil paintings and showering the room in crystal shrapnel. Victor Vance, recovering with terrifying speed from the table slam, rolled across the floor, drawing a customized Sig Sauer pistol with a suppressor already screwed onto the barrel.
He wasn't aiming at the window. He was aiming dead at Ethan's chest.
"Sorry, boss," Victor snarled, a cold, predatory grin spreading across his scarred face. "The Caldwell empire belongs to the bloodline now. And your bloodline signed your death warrant."
Before Victor could squeeze the trigger, a heavy silver chafing dish came flying across the room with lethal velocity, smashing squarely into his wrist and sending his pistol skittering across the marble floor.
Victor roared in fury, spinning around to face his attacker.
It was Maggie. She stood barefoot atop the dining chairs, her eyes burning with an icy, terrifying intensity that completely erased the facade of the meek housemaid.
"You're remarkably slow for a security chief, Victor," Maggie said coldly, her voice dropping an octave into a low, metallic timbre that made Ethan’s blood run cold.
Victor lunged at her, pulling a tactical combat knife from his boot. "You're dead, you little bitch! You and your precious brother!"
At the mention of her brother, something snapped inside Maggie. She didn't dodge. She stepped directly into Victor's guard, caught his knife-wielding wrist with her right hand, twisted it with bone-shattering force, and drove her palm upward into his chin.
Victor collapsed like a felled oak tree, unconscious before he hit the ground.
Ethan rose slowly from the floor, his breathing heavy, his gun still raised. He looked at Victor’s unconscious body, then turned his disbelieving eyes toward Maggie. She was standing over the security chief, brushing a speck of dust off her maid’s apron as if she had just cleared away a dinner plate.
"Who..." Ethan’s voice was raspy, completely stripped of its usual mafia-boss authority. "Who the hell are you, Maggie?"
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Maggie pulled a small, encrypted microchip out of Victor’s breast pocket, tossed it onto the table, and looked Ethan dead in the eye.
"My name is Maggie Doyle," she said steadily. "And your family didn't just hire a maid, Mr. Caldwell. They hired the only person alive hunting the syndicate that murdered your father."
