Chapter 2 - The Cost of Saving a Princess
The water in the break room sink dripped with a slow, agonizing rhythm. Drop. Drop. Drop.
Belle stared at her son’s small, scraped elbow as the antiseptic foam bubbled white against his skin. Micah didn't wince. He had the quiet, watchful composure of a boy who had learned too early that crying didn't change the temperature of a freezing apartment or put groceries in the pantry.
"Why did you do that, Micah?" Belle asked again, her voice shaking slightly as she tossed the cotton ball into the metal bin. "You could have fallen too. Twenty-three feet, baby. You could have slipped."
Micah looked down at his bruised palms, then up at his mother with eyes that carried an ancient sort of wisdom. "She was falling, Mom. Nobody else was there."
"You don't know them," Belle whispered, wrapping a sterile bandage around his arm with trembling fingers. "This house... these people aren't like us. You saw the guards at the gate. You saw the way Sully looks at everyone. We are guests here only because I clean their floors. Heroes don't belong in basement apartments, Micah. Heroes get in the way."
Before Micah could answer, a sharp, double rap sounded on the break room door.
It wasn't a casual knock. It was the rhythmic, authoritative rap of someone who owned the door, the frame, and the entire land it stood upon.
Belle’s heart hammered against her ribs. She stood up quickly, smoothing down the front of her gray cotton maid’s tunic. "Stay here," she murmured to Micah.
She pulled the door open.
Sully Byrne stood in the hallway. The estate manager’s sharp features were set in stone, his tailored gray suit immaculate, his eyes cold. Behind him stood two burly security guards in dark tactical vests, their hands folded neatly in front of them.
"Belle Vance," Sully said, his voice flat. "Mr. Kavanaugh wants to see you and your boy in the main study. Now."
Fear tasted like copper in Belle’s mouth. People didn't get summoned to Renick Kavanaugh’s private study for a reward. In Boston’s underworld, a meeting with the most feared man in the city usually meant you were either being bought out or buried out.
"Is... is he angry?" Belle asked, her voice barely a whisper as she tried to block the doorway so Sully couldn't see Micah sitting on the bench. "My son didn't mean to cause a disturbance. He was just—"
"Mr. Kavanaugh doesn't get angry over saved lives, Mrs. Vance," Sully interrupted, his tone chillingly polite. "He gets curious. Move aside, please."
There was no choice. Belle stepped back, her hands trembling as Micah slid off the bench and walked over to stand beside her leg, his small hand instinctively gripping the fabric of her skirt.
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Sully led them down a labyrinth of hallways they were never supposed to enter. They passed through the East Wing, where historical oil paintings lined the dark oak walls, past heavy velvet drapes and armored display cases, until they reached a towering set of double mahogany doors guarded by four armed men.
The guards nodded to Sully. The heavy doors swung open silently.
