Chapter 4 - The Lion's Demands
By six in the morning, the master suite had been transformed into an intensive care fortress.
Two armed guards from Rhett’s private personal detail—men brought in from the North End of Boston who answered to no one else—stood outside the splintered door.
Frank Corsi and Tommy Velez were nowhere to be found, having been escorted to the basement holding cells for questioning by Rhett’s head of intelligence.
Inside the bedroom, the morning sun broke over the treetops of Roger Williams Park, casting long golden slats through the blinds.
Rhett Marquetti sat propped against four feather pillows, an IV line taped securely into the back of his right forearm.
The purple bruises around his throat and chest were dark and angry, showing the violent marks where Winnie had compressed his ribs to keep blood pumping to his brain.
Winnie sat in a high-backed leather armchair five feet from the foot of his bed, an untouched porcelain cup of black coffee sitting on the small table beside her.
She had refused three separate orders from estate staff to leave the room and change out of her soiled cleaning smock.
“You’re still wearing the uniform,” Rhett said, his voice dry and raspy, but carrying the full weight of his authority once again.
Winnie looked up from her hands, which were stained with silver polish and floor wax.
“It’s my only one,” she said evenly.
“The agency gives us two, but the laundry in the basement takes forty-eight hours to turn them around.”
Rhett studied her through narrowed eyes, assessing her the way he might assess an unexpected shipment of contraband at the docks.
He saw the graying streaks in her dark brown hair, the sharp lines around her mouth, and the utter absence of the terrified deference that usually surrounded him.
Most women in this house either wore five-thousand-dollar designer dresses or shrank against the wallpaper whenever he walked down the stairs.
Winnie Doyle sat in his private sanctuary looking like an off-duty dockworker who was waiting for her bus.
“You kicked through three inches of solid oak,” Rhett noted, glancing at the shattered frame that a carpenter had spent the last hour measuring.
“The wood was dry-rotted at the baseboard,” Winnie replied, taking a slow sip of her cold coffee.
“Whoever varnished it last autumn used an oil-based sealant over damp pine.”
“It looked sturdy, but the lower strike plate had less than an inch of good wood holding the screws.”
Rhett’s lips twitched slightly, the ghost of an amused smirk breaking through his pale, exhausted features.
“You know about carpentry?”
“My father built fishing dories in Gloucester for thirty years before the yards shut down,” she said.
“You learn where things break when you spend your life fixing what rich people throw away.”
Rhett leaned his head back against the pillows, closing his eyes for a moment as a wave of nausea clearly washed over him.
The poison was out of his bloodstream, but the neurological aftershocks would take days to clear completely.
“Mercer ran the mass spectrometer on the Scotch,” Rhett said, opening his eyes again.
“Methomyl.”
“A commercial carbamate insecticide used on potato farms in Maine.”
“Odourless in dark spirits, highly soluble, lethal within fifteen minutes of ingestion.”
“I told you it smelled like burnt copper,” Winnie said without a hint of pride in her voice.
“My brother swallowed half a bottle of weedkiller when he was six because he thought it was apple juice.”
“You never forget what chemicals do to a human body when you’ve watched it happen on the kitchen linoleum.”
Rhett’s gaze sharpened, lingering on her face with intense curiosity.
“Frank said you mentioned your brother before you took the door down.”
“Did he die?”
“Not that day,” Winnie said, her voice dropping into a hard, flat tone.
“He died eight years ago.”
“In an apartment building fire on Cranston Street.”
“The landlord had padlocked the fire door from the outside to keep the junkies from sleeping in the stairwell.”
“I was on the third floor landing with a crowbar, but I couldn't get the lock off in time.”
Rhett was silent for a long moment, the hum of the bedside IV pump filling the space between them.
He understood violence; he dealt in it every single day of his life with the cold detachment of an accountant.
Yet the raw, unadorned grief in Winnie’s voice was something he rarely encountered in a world where everyone had an angle or a price.
“You didn’t kick that door down for me,” Rhett observed quietly.
“I don't know you, Mr. Marquetti,” Winnie said, looking him dead in the eye.
“From what I hear in the laundry chutes, you’re not a particularly good man.”
“You’ve ruined families, you run the numbers rackets from here to Worcester, and half the cops in this city take envelopes from your drivers on the first of the month.”
Rhett didn't deny it; he simply tilted his head, waiting for her conclusion.
“I didn't care whose name was on the brass plate on that door,” Winnie continued.
“Nobody dies behind a locked door while I’m standing on the other side with two working feet.”
“Not a saint, and not a gangster.”
Rhett let out a genuine, low laugh that ended in a sharp wince as his bruised ribs protested.
“You have a remarkably suicidal mouth on you, Miss Doyle.”
“I’m fifty-two years old, Mr. Marquetti,” she said, setting her coffee cup down with a sharp clink.
“I work seventy hours a week between this barn and the office park by the interstate.”
“I have twenty-two hundred dollars in a credit union savings account and bad cartilage in both hips.”
“There isn't a single thing you or your cousin can take from me that the state of Rhode Island hasn't already taxed.”
Rhett pulled the tape from his arm, ignoring Dr. Mercer’s strict instructions, and swung his long legs over the side of the bed.
He swayed slightly as his bare feet hit the Persian carpet, but he held himself upright through sheer willpower.
He walked over to where she sat, towering over her, his broad shoulders casting a wide shadow across her chair.
“My cousin Lorenzo thinks he can buy anyone,” Rhett said, his voice dropping into a harsh whisper.
“He bought Frank.”
“He bought the distributor who brought the single malt from the bonded warehouse.”
“He probably thinks he bought the kitchen girl who carried the tray up the stairs.”
He leaned down, placing both hands on the arms of Winnie’s chair, trapping her within his space.
The scent of expensive cedar and medicinal alcohol radiated from him, intense and suffocating.
“I am surrounded by men who kiss my ring while measuring the size of my coffin,” Rhett whispered.
“You’re the only person under this roof who didn't want me dead at 2:04 this morning.”
“I didn't want you dead,” Winnie corrected him calmly.
“That doesn't mean I want to be your friend.”
“I don't need a friend, Miss Doyle,” Rhett said, his dark eyes burning with absolute certainty.
“I need an executioner who knows how to spot the dirt.”
“Starting this morning, you don't scrub floors.”
“You don't take orders from Lorenzo, you don't report to the housekeeper, and you don't leave my sight.”
Winnie frowned, her thick eyebrows drawing together.
“And if I refuse?”
Rhett reached into the pocket of his silk robe, pulled out a gold money clip, and dropped a thick stack of hundred-dollar bills directly into her lap.
“Then you can walk out the front gate with ten thousand dollars right now,” he said.
“And by noon, Lorenzo will make sure your car runs off the bridge into the bay to tie up the loose ends.”
Winnie looked down at the money, then up at the ruthless crime boss standing over her.
“You really are a bastard,” she said.
Rhett smiled, cold and sharp.
“Yes,” he agreed.
May you like
“Now come downstairs and help me find the person who poisoned my drink.”
***
