The Mafia Boss Took My Quiet Smile as an Insult, but When He Entered the Room, His Face Suddenly Turned to Stone

That night, the mafia boss aimed the weapon hidden behind the door of his own house at me, because he thought I had stolen his secret.

For four years, not a single woman had entered Damian Romano’s mansion’s private wing. I learned this on my very first day, when I was brought in as a cleaner at the enormous Barrington house. Mrs. Higgins quietly warned me:

“You do not speak to Mr. Romano unless he addresses you first.”

“And if I need to ask something?”

“Then think carefully first about whether learning the answer is worth it.”

It was six o’clock in the evening. Rain ran down the windows in cold lines, while the small copper swallow left by my mother scratched my skin against my heart, under the uniform. I always wore it. It was the only thing I had left from my mother.

I was Hazel Brooks, twenty-four years old, too full-figured, too shy, and more frightened than I had ever admitted to anyone. I wore a large, dark-blue uniform that covered my body and seemed to say: there is nothing to see here.

But in that house, everything was hiding something.

In the kitchen, the silver spoons shone as if cleaning them meant a human life. Guards moved silently through the corridors. Cameras blinked on the walls like eyes. And Damian Romano’s presence could be felt everywhere—the smell of cigar, leather, and cold winter air.

At ten at night, while I was wiping the library door, I heard a heavy voice from behind.

“Who let you in here?”

I turned. Damian Romano stood in the doorway. He wore a black shirt, its sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His face was calm, but there was such coldness in his eyes that the glass in my hand made me shiver.

“Mrs. Higgins,” I answered.

“I did not ask about Mrs. Higgins.”

“I… I am Hazel.”

His gaze slid down over the uniform, then stopped on my face.

“I already know that.”

I noticed an old photograph in a frame on the table. A young woman was smiling. Damian stood beside her, but he was not the Damian the city knew. In the photograph, his hand rested on the woman’s waist.

“The exit is to the left,” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

Just then, the photograph fell to the floor. The glass shattered.

Damian’s face changed immediately.

“Do not touch it.”

“I only wanted to…”

“Do not touch it!”

His voice shook the room. I froze. Then I saw how he bent down, but he was looking not at the photograph, but at a small black card that had fallen near the floor.

He quickly picked it up.

“This has never been here before,” he said.

“I did not put it there.”

“Then who did?”

Footsteps sounded in the corridor behind him. Damian closed the card in his fist and called to the guard:

“Lock every door.”

The guard came in immediately.

“Sir?”

Damian did not take his eyes off me.

“Hazel is not to go anywhere.”

My heart began beating so hard that I thought everyone would hear it. The swallow’s small copper wing dug into my skin. At that same moment, the phone lit up. I received a message from an unknown number: “If you want to know why your father died, look behind the library wall.”

Damian saw my face.

“Who wrote to you?”

“I don’t know.”

He held out his hand.

“Give me the phone.”

I stepped back. For the first time in my life, I did not hide my shoulders.

“No.”

Silence fell over the room.

Damian slowly approached me. His fingers touched the grip of the gun, while my hand closed around the copper swallow. Then the wall clock struck eleven, and the back shelf of the library moved by itself.

Damian drew his gun.

“Now, Hazel, tell me who you really are…”

His question hung in the air as the shelf moved all the way aside and a narrow hollow appeared in the wall.

For the first time, I saw fear in Damian.

“Stand back,” he ordered me.

“The message was sent to me.”

“That is exactly why you should stand back.”

He put his hand into the wall and pulled out a small leather folder. My surname was written on its cover.

My breath caught.

“This is my father’s handwriting,” I said.

Damian looked at me.

“Your father was killed four years ago. The same night my fiancée died.”

“Did you know her?”

He could not answer.

The sound of breaking glass came from outside. The guards drew their weapons. Damian pressed the folder to his chest and took my hand.

“Now you are the target of my enemy.”

“And what connection do you have to my father’s death?”

His fingers tightened around mine slightly.

“I cannot tell you that yet.”

Just then a second message arrived on the phone: “If you do not bring the folder to the harbor by four in the morning, Damian Romano will learn that his fiancée’s killer lives beside him…”

The wind that burst into the room after Damian’s last words seemed colder to me.

It was eleven at night. Outside the library, guards ran silently, while rain struck the windowpanes as if someone were trying to get inside.

“Open the folder,” I said.

“Not yet.”

“My father’s name is written there.”

“And it may also be the reason for your death.”

“All my life I thought my father died in a car accident.”

Damian clenched his jaw.

“I did not invent that lie.”

He placed the folder on the table. Dust lay on the cover, but the thumbprint left on the side was fresh. Damian took a handkerchief and opened the lock.

On the very first page was written: “Thomas Brooks, chief security engineer.” Beneath it stood a date from four years earlier.

I leaned against the chair.

“My father worked here?”

“Yes,” Damian said.

“You knew this?”

“I knew that he had discovered a defect in the security system that night. I did not know that you were his daughter.”

In the middle of the folder lay a small voice recorder. Damian turned it on. For several seconds there was only rustling. Then my father’s voice sounded—tired, quiet, and so familiar that my knees gave way.

“If someone finds this, know that Elena’s murder was not accidental. The brakes of the car were sabotaged by the Romano family’s lawyer, Marco Valenti. He stole Damian’s signature and also embezzled the harbor money. I recorded everything.”

Marco’s voice sounded from the recorder.

“Damian needs Elena to remain human. If she dies, the boy will see only revenge.”

I covered my mouth.

Damian stood motionless. Only the vein in his right hand was throbbing.

“Four years…” he said quietly.

“You trusted Marco.”

“He was my family’s lawyer.”

“He killed my father.”

Damian lowered his eyes.

“And Elena.”

Marco appeared in the doorway. Two armed men stood behind him. He had a calm smile on his face.

“Unfortunately, you should not have had time to listen to the recording.”

Damian raised his gun.

“One more step and you die.”

Marco chuckled.

“If you shoot me, everyone will say Hazel deceived you. But this is only the beginning. Half the city already thinks you have grown weak.”

I took the recording and pressed it to my chest.

“You do not know what weakness means,” I told him.

Marco looked toward me.

“You are just a cleaner.”

“No. I am the daughter of the man who preserved your voice.”

For the first time, Damian looked at me as if I were his equal.

Then the back window exploded. A bullet flew over the table. Damian rushed toward me, covered me with his body, and knocked me to the floor.

When I raised my head, he was above me. His chest was moving quickly. My fear slowly subsided and, in his arms, amid the sounds of gunfire and alarm, my eyes closed by themselves.

Damian said quietly to me:

“Hazel, do not fall asleep.”

But it was already too late.

And in the morning, when I woke up in the clinic, a policeman stood beside my bed instead of Damian, holding a new document. It said that my father was not only a witness, but the legal owner of all the Romano property…