Chapter 3 - The Ghost on the Books
By midday, the rain had turned into a wet, freezing sleet that coated the black glass of the estate in a skin of gray ice.
Maeve was on her hands and knees in the secondary study on the third floor, scrubbing soot from the hearth of an antique limestone fireplace. Her knees ached through her thin trousers, and the damp cold had settled into her lower back, but her pocket felt warm. The two hundred-dollar bills were tucked inside her bra, safe against her skin.
Two hundred dollars meant her sister Clara’s phone wouldn't be shut off. It meant Clara could still call the nurse if her breathing got shallow in the middle of the night.
The heavy mahogany door clicked open.
Maeve didn't jump. She had learned within thirty-six hours that flinching only invited more attention from the triplets. She kept her wire brush moving in steady, rhythmic circles against the black stone.
A shadow fell over her.
Gabriel stood there, twirling a heavy silver pen between his long, slender fingers. He had changed into a tailored charcoal turtleneck that made his pale skin look almost porcelain. He didn't look like a killer; he looked like an art dealer who occasionally murdered his clients for fun.
"You have very interesting paperwork, Maeve," Gabriel said softly.
He didn't wait for her to respond. He crossed to the leather settee near the window and sat down, crossing one long leg over the other. In his other hand was a slim manila folder—the one Mrs. Hess had kept locked in the administration safe downstairs.
Maeve kept scrubbing. "Agency contracts are standard. Nothing interesting about minimum wage."
"Oh, the agency contract is boring," Gabriel agreed, opening the folder with a flick of his wrist. "Maeve Kelly. Age twenty-four. Born in Boston. High school diploma from St. Jude’s. No criminal record. Clean credit until twenty-two months ago, when a certain Clara Kelly was admitted to Massachusetts General with acute glomerulonephritis."
Maeve’s brush stopped. Her knuckles turned white against the wooden handle.
"Leave Clara out of this," she whispered, her voice rough.
"I love family devotion," Gabriel continued, his voice dropping into that smooth, toxic purr. "It’s our brand, after all. But here's the funny thing, Maeve. I had our boys in Boston run your social security number through our financial clearinghouses. Just out of curiosity. Because a girl who can look Declan Falcone in the eye while he has a gun in her face isn't usually a girl who cleans grease traps for eight dollars an hour."
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
"Your father wasn't an Irish dockworker, was he?"
Maeve felt the blood drain from her face. A cold, hollow void opened in the pit of her stomach, deeper and far more terrifying than the hunger she had felt that morning.
"My father died ten years ago," she said, forcing her voice to remain level. "He was a mechanic."
"He was an accountant," Gabriel corrected softly. "For the O'Malley outfit in South Boston. And when the O'Malleys had their little falling out with the federal prosecutors back in 2018, eight million dollars of their liquid reserves disappeared into thin air. Two weeks later, Sean Kelly’s car hit a bridge abutment at ninety miles an hour."
Gabriel stood up, closing the distance between them with that soundless, feline tread. He stopped right at the edge of her drop cloth, the polished leather of his loafers inches from her wet rubber gloves.
"The O'Malleys spent four years turning Boston upside down looking for that eight million," Gabriel murmured, crouching down so his face was level with hers. "They never found it. And then, two years ago, Sean Kelly’s oldest daughter suddenly drops out of college, takes an alias, and starts working third-shift cleaning jobs while paying cash for her sister's dialysis under a dead woman’s tax ID."
He reached out, his cool fingers lightly catching a damp strand of hair that had fallen across her cheek, tucking it behind her ear.
Maeve pulled back violently, her eyes blazing with sudden, lethal panic. "Don't touch me."
Gabriel’s eyes lit up with genuine delight. "There she is. The little accountant’s daughter. Tell me, Maeve... did Daddy leave you the numbers before he hit that bridge? Is that why you didn't take Roman’s fifty grand last night? Because fifty thousand is pocket change to a girl sitting on eight million?"
"If I had eight million dollars," Maeve hissed through clenched teeth, her chest heaving, "do you think I would be scrubbing your disgusting dried blood off the baseboards? Do you think I would let my sister cough up blood in a subsidized clinic while the heat gets shut off every other Tuesday?"
Gabriel studied her face. The manic intensity in his eyes flickered, analyzing the micro-expressions of her rage. He tilted his head.
"Fair point," he conceded smoothly. "Unless you don't know how to unlock it. Or unless... someone else has the key, and they're waiting for you to get desperate enough to come looking."
Before Maeve could respond, the floorboards outside the door creaked.
Declan was leaning against the doorframe, his massive arms crossed over a black tactical vest. A heavy combat knife was strapped to his thigh, and his face was set in a scowl that looked carved from granite.
"Leave the girl alone, Gabe," Declan barked.
Gabriel didn't look back. He kept his eyes on Maeve, a lazy smirk returning to his lips. "Just getting acquainted with the staff, brother. Finding out what makes our little chef tick."
"Roman wants you downstairs," Declan said, stepping into the room. His presence immediately shrank the space, sucking all the air out of the corners. "The port authority just called. Three of our shipping containers in Bayonne were flagged for inspection by the Department of Homeland Security."
Gabriel’s smile vanished instantly, replaced by the dead, cold stillness that made the Falcones terrifying. He stood up, smoothing his trousers.
"Homeland?" Gabriel murmured. "The port commissioner promised those crates had diplomatic seal."
"Someone leaked the manifest," Declan said, his dark eyes sliding toward Maeve.
The air in the room instantly turned to sub-zero ice.
Maeve felt the trap snap shut around her neck.
"She was in the library yesterday," Gabriel said quietly, the lightness completely gone from his tone. "Roman’s desk was covered in the Bayonne logistics slips."
Maeve scrambled to her feet, dropping the wire brush into the bucket with a loud, hollow splash. "I didn't touch his desk! I emptied the trash! I didn't even look at the papers!"
Declan walked toward her. He didn't look like the man who had devoured her biscuits three hours ago. He looked like an executioner who had just received his warrant. He stopped an inch from her, his sheer bulk blotting out the light from the window.
He reached down and grabbed her chin in his rough, calloused hand, forcing her head up until her neck strained. His thumb pressed brutally against her jawbone.
"If you're a plant, little girl," Declan whispered, his breath smelling of dark roast coffee and cold steel, "I won't just kill you. I’ll go to that clinic in Boston and pull Clara’s plugs myself."
Maeve didn't flinch. A white-hot, blinding fury surged through her veins, incinerating the last shreds of her fear. She grabbed his thick wrist with both of her hands, her nails digging into his skin through his leather watch strap.
"You touch my sister," Maeve spat, her voice shaking with pure venom, "and I will poison every scrap of food that enters this house. I will put lye in your coffee and ground glass in your eggs, and I will watch the three of you bleed out through your guts on that white marble floor."
Declan stared at her.
His eyes widened slightly.
A heavy, suffocating silence fell between them. Then, slowly, a low, guttural sound tore from Declan’s chest.
He was laughing.
It was a terrifying, jagged laugh that rattled the glass in the window frames. He released her jaw, his fingers trailing a faint red mark on her skin.
"She’s not a fed, Gabe," Declan said, turning toward the door with a wild grin that showed his sharp, white teeth. "A fed would have cried and asked for a lawyer. This one’s feral."
Gabriel looked at Maeve, his eyes dark, unreadable, and endlessly dangerous. "Feral things are the first ones you put down when they get into the pantry."
"Get downstairs," Roman’s voice commanded from the hallway.
Roman appeared in the doorway, his overcoat already buttoned, black leather gloves pulled taut over his fingers. He looked at Maeve standing by the bucket, her chest heaving, her eyes wild with defiance.
"Declan, bring the car around," Roman ordered without looking away from Maeve. "Gabriel, call our contact in Newark. Tell him if those seals are broken before we arrive, his daughter’s scholarship fund gets canceled permanently."
The two brothers moved without a word, vanishing down the stairs like phantoms.
Roman stepped into the study. He walked to the mantelpiece, picked up a small brass box, and set it on the table beside Maeve’s cleaning bucket.
"What is that?" Maeve asked, her voice trembling despite her best efforts.
"The key to the pantry in the cellar," Roman said evenly. "There are three crates of Maine lobster coming at four. Tell the driver to leave them on the dock. You inspect the ice."
Maeve blinked, completely thrown off balance. "You... you don't think I leaked the manifests?"
Roman walked to the door, stopping on the threshold. He looked back at her over his shoulder, his dark eyes colder than the sleet beating against the glass.
"If you had leaked those manifests, Maeve, you wouldn't be standing here talking about lye and ground glass," Roman said softly. "You would already be at the bottom of the quarry."
May you like
He turned and walked away, his boots clicking in a slow, steady rhythm on the marble.
"Dinner is at eight," his voice echoed back up the stairwell. "Don't burn the biscuits."
