Chapter 4 - The Empty Room
Sunday night brought a torrential downpour that rattled the reinforced glass windows of the estate like machine-gun fire.
Leo sat alone in his study. The war with the Russians had been successfully contained through a series of brutal, quiet backroom negotiations, but the victory tasted like ash. For three days, Mave had avoided him. She left his meals outside the study door, cleaned the estate while he was in meetings, and vanished into her quarters before he could corner her in the hall.
The silence in the house was deafening.
At 11:30 p.m., Leo rubbed his aching eyes and stood up. He needed a drink, or he needed to check the security logs. He walked out of the study and down the long, dimly lit hallway toward the kitchen.
The kitchen was dark.
Leo flipped on the overhead light.
Mave’s apron hung neatly over the back of a wooden chair. Her cleaning cart was parked against the pantry, stocked and ready for Monday morning. But something felt wrong. The air lacked the faint scent of vanilla soap that always signaled she had recently been there.
Leo walked down the service corridor toward the staff quarters on the ground floor.
He stopped outside Mave’s room.
The door was slightly ajar. A thin strip of yellow light spilled across the hardwood floor.
“Mave?”
No answer.
Leo pushed the door open.
The room was meticulously clean. The bed was made with military precision. Her small wardrobe was completely empty. On the wooden desk in the corner sat the sleek black smartphone he had given her, resting beside a white envelope with his name written across it in her neat, precise handwriting.
A cold wave of absolute panic—a terror he had never felt facing rival hitmen or federal indictments—washed over Leo's soul.
He crossed the room in two strides, tore open the envelope, and pulled out the note.
Leo,
I tried. I really tried to stay in my lane, to keep my head down, and to treat this as just a job. But watching those men pull guns in your hallway made something crystal clear: your world is a cage, and anyone who stays in it too long either becomes a monster or a victim.
I am neither. Thank you for everything you did for Sam and me. Don't look for me.
— Mave.
Leo dropped the paper. It fluttered to the floor like a fallen leaf.
He ran out of the room, bursting into the grand foyer, and snatched up his encrypted satellite phone.
“Victor!” Leo bellowed into the line as the underboss answered on the first ring.
“Boss? What is it? Did the Russians hit—?”
“Track Mave's company phone! Now!”
“The maid? Boss, she’s off shift—uuh, wait. Her phone is stationary. It's sitting on her desk in the staff quarters.”
“She left it,” Leo snarled, panic making his voice razor-sharp. “Check the estate perimeter cameras. Find out when she walked out.”
A heavy silence stretched over the line as Victor scrambled at his terminal.
“Boss... security logs show she left through the east service gate at 8:00 p.m. She's been gone over three hours.”
May you like
Leo hung up without another word.
He threw on his wool overcoat, grabbed his gun, and bolted out the front door into the freezing, relentless rain.
