Chapter 2 - The Sound of ChaosThe second week of Ruby’s employment proved that the first day hadn’t been an isolated incident. It had been a warning shot.
Dominic sat in his private study on the second floor, a thick dossier of port authority logistics open on his mahogany desk. Outside, a heavy autumn rain lashed against the tall windows, casting a melancholic gray light across the room.
Usually, the storm provided the exact kind of soothing white noise Dominic preferred.
Today, however, it competed with the muffled, rhythmic thumping of bass coming from the floor below.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Dominic pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a familiar tension headache form right behind his eyes.
He rose from his leather chair, walked across the thick Persian rug, and pulled open the heavy study door. The sound hit him instantly—a vibrant, soulful R&B track echoing up the grand marble staircase, accompanied by the unmistakable sound of someone passionately hitting high notes while vacuuming the hallway runner.
Dominic marched down the stairs, his footsteps silent and deliberate.
He rounded the corner into the east wing gallery just in time to see Ruby executing a textbook moonwalk backward while guiding a Dyson vacuum cleaner along the baseboards. She wore an oversized denim shirt over her uniform top, her dark curls tied up in a messy bun with a yellow pencil stabbed right through the center.
She turned around, shut off the vacuum with her foot, and jumped slightly as she saw him standing there like an avenging angel in charcoal wool.
“Oh!” Ruby clutched her chest, breathing hard. “Lord, Mr. Vale. You move like a ghost. Do you not have a bell or a warning system?”
“I live here, Ms. Bennett,” Dominic said, his voice a low, gravelly baritone that could freeze boiling water. “This is a residence, not a Broadway holding room.”
Ruby unclipped the vacuum hose, resting her hands on her hips. Her chest rose and fell beneath her shirt, and she looked him dead in the eye without a shred of intimidation.
“Well, working in total silence makes people jumpy,” she retorted, tilting her chin up. “A little music keeps the morale high. Happy house, clean house. It’s basic psychology.”
“My house does not require morale,” Dominic said coldly. “It requires discretion, efficiency, and quiet.”
“Quiet is for libraries and crime scenes,” Ruby shot back, completely unintimidated. “People live here, Mr. Vale. Even if one of those people walks around looking like he swallowed a thundercloud.”
Dominic stared at her, stunned. For eight years, nobody—not his regional directors, not his bankers, not even Marcus—had ever spoken to him with such casual defiance.
Before he could formulate a suitably terrifying reply, a sharp buzz interrupted them from the front foyer.
Marcus hurried around the corner, his expression tight and urgent. “Boss. We’ve got an issue at the southern dock. A truck shipment from the container yard just got intercepted.”
Dominic’s eyes flicked away from Ruby, the casual annoyance instantly replaced by razor-sharp executive focus. “Intercepted by whom?”
May you like
“The Moretti crew,” Marcus muttered. “They’re testing our perimeter lines.”
Dominic turned on his heel without another word to Ruby, marching toward the exit. But as he grabbed his overcoat from the rack, he glanced back. Ruby was standing by the vacuum cleaner, her expression suddenly serious, watching him go with a depth in her eyes that unnerved him more than her singing ever could.
Related Stories
