PART 2: THE MAFIA BOSS WOKE UP CALLING HIS ᴅᴇᴀᴅ WIFE’S NAME—THEN HE SAW WHO WAS HOLDING HIS HAND

“Elena?”

Adrian’s voice was barely audible.

His gray eyes stared at me, unfocused and terrified, as if he were looking at a ghost.

I тιԍнтened my grip on the blanket around his shoulders.

“No, Mr. Cross. It’s me. It’s Claire. You’re safe.”

For one brief second, something shattered behind his eyes.

Then he released my wrist and turned his face away.

“Get out.”

I stared at him.

“You have a fever of nearly 104 degrees. You can barely sit upright, and you want me to leave?”

His expression hardened despite his weakness.

“I said get out.”

“Fine. But I’m not leaving you alone. You can fire me when you’re well enough to stand.”

I expected him to threaten me.

Instead, he closed his eyes.

And for the first time since I had entered his mansion, Adrian Cross looked less like a feared crime lord and more like a man who was exhausted from fighting something nobody else could see.

I spent the next several hours monitoring his condition, keeping him warm, and trying repeatedly to reach emergency services. When he was alert enough to swallow safely, I gave him small sips of water.

His fever remained dangerously high.

I knew I couldn’t replace a doctor, and if his condition worsened, he needed professional medical attention. I kept trying to get help through the storm.

Just before dawn, Adrian woke again.

This time, he was fully conscious.

His gaze moved across the room, taking in the wet clothes I had changed out of, the medical supplies scattered beside the fireplace, and the towel resting against his forehead.

Then he noticed my hands.

They were trembling from exhaustion.

“How long have you been awake?” he asked.

“Long enough.”

“Why?”

I looked at him.

“Because someone had to help you.”

His jaw тιԍнтened.

“People don’t risk their lives for nothing.”

“Maybe that’s the problem with the people you surround yourself with.”

Silence fell between us.

I expected anger.

Instead, he watched me with an expression I couldn’t quite understand.

Then he asked the question that caught me completely off guard.

“Why didn’t you leave me outside?”

I thought about the dining room, the cruel laughter, and the way he had sat there without defending me.

“You wouldn’t have done the same for me,” I admitted.

Something flickered across his face.

“But I couldn’t let you die just to prove a point.”

For a long time, he said nothing.

Then he whispered, “You’re a fool.”

“Probably.”

It was the first time I had seen the corner of his mouth move as though he almost wanted to smile.

Almost.

By midmorning, the storm began to weaken. One of the estate’s security guards finally reached the house after clearing a path from the outer gate. Adrian was examined by a doctor who arrived with the first emergency team able to get through.

I was told to rest.

Instead, I went downstairs to prepare something warm to eat.

When I returned with a tray, Adrian was sitting upright in bed, wearing a fresh shirt. His doctor had insisted he remain under observation, but his eyes were already back to their usual cold gray.

He looked at the bowl of soup in my hands.

“You made that?”

“The chef isn’t here.”

“I didn’t ask whether the chef was here.”

“Then yes.”

He took a spoonful.

I waited for him to criticize it.

Instead, he ate several more.

Then he set the bowl aside.

“Claire.”

It was the first time he had called me by my name without sounding annoyed.

“Yes?”

“Come here.”

I approached cautiously.

He reached toward the nightstand and picked up a small black box.

“Open it.”

Inside was a diamond necklace.

I stared at it, then at him.

“What is this?”

“Something I should have done a long time ago.”

“If you’re trying to pay me for saving your life, you don’t have to.”

His eyes narrowed.

“You think I can settle every debt with money?”

“I think you’re used to trying.”

For several seconds, neither of us spoke.

Then Adrian closed the box.

“You’re right.”

The admission surprised me more than the necklace.

He looked toward the window, where snow still covered the gardens.

“Elena used to say the same thing.”

I had never heard him speak about his wife so openly.

“What was she like?” I asked softly.

For the first time, his expression changed completely.

“She laughed at the wrong moments. She argued with me when everyone else was too afraid to speak. And she believed there was still something good in me.”

His voice faltered.

“I promised her I would keep her safe.”

I lowered my eyes.

“You can’t protect everyone from everything.”

“No,” he said. “But I can make sure the people responsible pay.”

The temperature in the room seemed to drop.

Before I could respond, his phone rang.

Adrian answered immediately.

“What?”

I watched his face change as he listened.

“Repeat that.”

A pause.

“Who authorized it?”

His fingers тιԍнтened around the phone.

Then he looked directly at me.

“Find the person who opened the rear gate. I want every camera from the last seventy-two hours reviewed.”

He ended the call.

“What happened?” I asked.

He didn’t answer immediately.

Instead, he studied me as though he were seeing something he had overlooked for months.

“Someone disabled the security system before I went outside.”

My stomach twisted.

“You think someone wanted you ᴅᴇᴀᴅ?”

“I know someone wanted me outside that house.”

He reached for a folder his guard had left beside the bed.

Inside were pH๏τographs of the damaged gate, the collapsed awning, and the footprints in the snow.

Then he showed me the final pH๏τograph.

It was a still image from a security camera taken shortly before the system went dark.

A man stood near the service entrance.

His face was partially hidden by a hood.

But I recognized the coat.

I had seen it hanging in the staff corridor just two days earlier.

My breath caught.

“That’s impossible.”

Adrian’s gaze sharpened.

“You know him?”

I swallowed.

“He works here.”

For the first time, the mafia boss looked genuinely surprised.

Then he asked the question that made my heart pound.

“Claire, when you found me outside, did you see anyone else?”

I shook my head.

“No. Just you.”

Adrian slowly closed the folder.

“Then there’s something you need to understand. Whoever did this knew exactly where I would be.”

He paused.

“And they knew you would be the one to find me.”

Before I could process his words, a knock sounded at the bedroom door.

One of Adrian’s guards entered, pale and visibly shaken.

“Boss, we found something in the service corridor.”

“What?”

The guard glanced at me.

Then he looked back at Adrian.

“Someone left a message. It was addressed to the maid.”

My blood ran cold.

Adrian’s expression turned lethal.

“Bring it here.”

The guard placed a folded piece of paper on the bed.

My name was written across the front.

With trembling fingers, I opened it.

There were only two sentences.

“You should have let him die in the snow.”

“Now that you’ve saved him, you’re next.”

I couldn’t breathe.

Adrian took the note from my hands, read it once, and looked toward the door.

When he spoke, his voice was terrifyingly calm.

“Lock down the estate. Nobody leaves.”

Then he turned to me.

“Claire, pack your things. You’re not sleeping in the servants’ quarters tonight.”

I stared at him.

“Where am I supposed to sleep?”

His eyes held mine.

“In my room. Where I can protect you.”

I should have refused.

I should have reminded him that he was the man who had humiliated me, dismissed me, and watched others do the same.

But before I could speak, he added something that changed everything.

“Because the man in that pH๏τograph isn’t just one of my employees.”

He reached into the folder and pulled out an older pH๏τograph.

A picture of a younger Adrian standing beside his late wife.

Behind them stood the same man.

And written on the back, in Elena’s handwriting, were six words:

“If anything happens to me, trust no one.”

Adrian stared at the pH๏τograph, his face turning pale.

Then he whispered a name.

The name of the man he had trusted with his life.

The man who had been standing beside him the night Elena died.

And the man who had just returned to the estate.

PART 3: The maid discovers why Elena died—and why the killer may have been watching her long before she ever met Adrian Cross.