Chapter 1 - The Man Who Did Not Blink
Adrien Moretti stared at her.
The silence in the room became heavy.
Heavy enough to crush glass.
The eight men seated around the long black table held their breaths.
Nobody interrupted the boss.
Least of all a terrified housekeeper holding a wet mop and a blue bucket.
Adrien did not move a single muscle.
His dark eyes scanned Maya from her soaked curls down to her waterlogged shoe.
That single shoe was still leaking onto the pristine Italian marble.
A small puddle was forming right beside his custom leather shoes.
Maya swallowed hard.
Her throat felt like sandpaper.
She wanted to vanish into thin air.
She wanted the floor to open up and swallow her whole.
Instead, she stood there like a drowned rat in a temple of shadows.
Adrien slowly leaned forward.
His broad shoulders shifted beneath his tailored black suit.
“You interrupted a meeting worth fifty million dollars,” Adrien said.
His voice was smooth.
Dangerously smooth.
Like velvet wrapped around a blade.
Maya blinked.
“Fifty million?” she whispered.
Her voice squeaked slightly.
“Well.”
She tried to smile.
It was a terrible mistake.
“That sounds like a lot.”
The man sitting to Adrien’s right coughed violently into his fist.
Another man pinched the bridge of his nose.
Adrien did not laugh.
He did not even smile.
He simply looked at her as if she were an entirely fascinating specimen under a microscope.
“Get her out of my sight,” Adrien finally murmured.
Maya’s heart plummeted.
Fired.
She was going to be fired.
On her eleventh day.
Without even getting her last paycheck.
“Yes, Mr. Moretti,” Maya muttered, shoulders slumping.
She turned around to drag her soggy shoe away.
“Not you, the water,” Adrien added coldly.
Maya froze.
She turned back slowly.
“Pardon?”
“Clean the puddle,” Adrien commanded, pointing two fingers at the floor by his feet.
“Then report to my private study at midnight.”
Maya’s eyes widened in horror.
Midnight?
In the private study of the most feared man in the syndicate?
That was where secrets were buried.
Literally.
“Midnight?” she repeated.
“Is there an issue with your hearing, Miss Collins?” Adrien asked.
“No, sir,” Maya mumbled.
“Good.”
May you like
Adrien turned back to his maps.
“Dismissed.”
