Chapter 1 - The Invisible Girl of the Penthouse
Every morning at exactly 7:00, I made coffee for the most feared man in Chicago, never imagining that months later I would stand barefoot on shattered glass with blood beneath my fingernails while Dante Moretti aimed a gun at the woman everyone expected him to marry.
The first time I stepped foot inside Dante Moretti’s penthouse, I thought it looked more like a cold, sterile museum than an actual human home.
White marble floors gleamed beneath soaring floor-to-ceiling windows that offered a sweeping, panoramic view of the freezing Chicago skyline. Armed men in dark suits stood near the doorways like stone statues, and discreet security lenses watched every corner of the vast, minimalist space.
Patricia, the household manager, met me near the service elevators, her face tight and devoid of warmth as she handed me a laminated security badge.
“You don’t ask questions, you don’t repeat anything you see or hear outside these walls, and if Mr. Moretti ever speaks to you, keep your answers brief and look at the floor,” Patricia instructed, her voice clipped.
“I understand,” I replied, clutching the strap of my canvas bag.
That was easy enough. I didn't want to talk to anyone, let alone the infamous billionaire who ruled half the city after dark.
My mother’s mounting medical bills were swallowing every single dollar I earned, my younger brother Mateo still had another year of tuition to pay off at Northwestern, and the rattling radiator in our cramped Little Village apartment barely kept out the bitter winter chill. I needed this job badly enough to become completely invisible.
For six weeks, I scrubbed, folded, polished, cooked, and kept my eyes glued to the floorboards.
Dante Moretti barely acknowledged my existence. To him, I was just another piece of moving furniture, a fixture of the staff rotation.
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On paper, Dante owned high-end hotels, exclusive restaurants, massive construction companies, and charitable foundations that graced the business journals. Off paper, everyone in Chicago knew the truth: he controlled the underground arteries of the city, a man whose word carried the weight of life and death.
Then his mother arrived, and my quiet invisibility shattered completely.
