If I dared to look too long out the window in passing, I was a stupid girl prone to daydreaming.
When I mistook a door on the first floor of this massive building for the door that would lead to the kitchen, I was a brainless twit who wasn’t paying attention.
Aside from her complaints about how lousy of a maid I would be, an estimated failure of an addition to the house staff, she took the liberty to critique my appearance under her breath.
How curvy I was, probably having cosmetic surgery to have a rack of this size.
How short I was, no doubt useless in properly reaching high enough to clean anything.
How tan my skin was, somehow proof that I was a lazy good-for-nothing idiot who laid out in tanning beds and wasted my money.
Getting Renee’s approval only mattered insomuch as obtaining and keeping my employment here.
The woman didn’t have to like me. I doubted she was capable of liking anyone, just one of those miserable people who hated the world on principle.
But she had to get to the point that I could meet muster and be allowed to stay on the staff.
Being a maid wasn’t my aspiration. Until I could satisfy my uncle, though, I was forced to endure this assignment.
Scrubbing harder, I set my teeth together and bit back a growl of frustration.
I’d knocked over a vase with my elbow and sent the crystal container crashing on the floor. A simple mistake, one that should’ve been forgivable with how startled I was to find a guardpractically hiding in a nook in the corridor near the doors to Andre’s office suite.
“You’ll need to get used to them,” Renee snarled. She’d flicked a dismissive hand at the burly, scowling guard. Gaunt-faced and not showing a single emotion as I jumped at spotting him so still in the hallway, he looked like a freaking statue. An indoor gargoyle. With the personality to match.
“The Orlov resident always has guards.” Renee arched a graying brow. “They’re always watching.”
I’d gulped and nodded, putting on the show of an obedient maid.
Having guards and soldiers around me wasn’t anything new. I, too, had lived in a residence that was heavily protected. While Renee bought my lie that I was Sofia Gonzalez, the short, curvy, brainless twit, I tucked away the secret of my real identity.
Guards and soldierswerea staple in my life. Being the eldest niece of Roberto Giovanni meant that I’d been subjected to the presence of security for as long as I could remember.
It was also why I understood every grumbled word of Russian she muttered. My father had insisted upon my cousin, Esmeralda, and I learning English, Spanish, Italian, and Russian. Even though we weren’t the strong sons they’d wished for—born girls and stuck in the fate of being Mafia princesses—we were expected to be fluent in any and all languages that members of crime families might utilize.
“He startled me is all,” I’d told Renee when the guard standing in the shadows made me jump, fling my arm out, and accidentally knock the vase off the table.
“Eh.” Renee curled her lip. “See that you don’t let Yusef ‘startle’ you again.” She proceeded to order me to clean up the broken vase and flowers. To wipe up the water and clear out any shards. While she was at it, she tacked on the instructions to vacuum the nearby plush rugs, scrub the area by hand, then polish it. The entire wing looked immaculate, but the devious glee in her grin suggested that she loved lording over new maids, treating them like slaves.
Enjoy it while you can.
I narrowed my eyes as I scrubbed on my hands and knees.
Because I won’t be here for you to boss around for long.
Another shard sparkled in the moonlight, and I sighed as I picked it up to dispose of it properly.
I’ll be gone as soon as I can.
Yet, I worried whether that was true.
Uncle Roberto had told me just last week that he expected me to “pick up the slack.”
Slackwasn’t a word I ever used to describe myself. I cooked for him. I helped teach the younger children in the family how to speak Russian. I was going back to school to finish my nursing degree. And I was often busiest helping Esmeralda when she was too sick and weak to do much at all.
I wasn’t a slacker at all, but he’d found a better use of my time. A better direction of my servitude to him since he was supposed to be the respected and beloved leader of the Giovanni Family.
Just days ago, he’d ordered me to disguise myself as a maid and be hired at Andre Orlov’s residence. He’d berated me aboutbeing a spoiled, lazy niece. Then he’d threatened me with an ultimatum I couldn’t have considered ignoring.
