The Mafia Boss's Mute Mother: When My Coworkers Pranked Me Into Her Room, One Secret Sign Revealed I Hold the Dead Heir's Final Confession! / Chapter 7 / 49

Chapter 7 - Ambush in the Hallway

The next morning, I arrived at Raven Hill with my nerves strung tighter than piano wire. I kept the micro-SD card tucked securely inside a secret zipper pocket sewn into the lining of my undergarments.

As I stepped out of the private elevator onto the East Wing floor, the atmosphere felt fundamentally wrong. The usual security guards were missing from their stations. The double doors to Evelyn’s suite were cracked open, and low, angry voices drifted out into the marble corridor.

I crept closer, holding my breath.

"...you can't hide her files from me forever, Cousin," June Callaway’s shrill, triumphant voice hissed inside the room. "I checked the agency records. The social security number Thea gave Beacon Staffing? It belongs to a girl who died in a floodplain fire in Ohio six years ago! She’s an impostor, Ronan. She’s an assassin or a corporate spy planted in our house!"

My heart stopped. The forged identity I had bought to protect Poppy had just imploded.

I peeked around the heavy oak doorframe.

Ronan Cain stood in the center of the bedroom, his back to me. His broad shoulders were rigid, his hands clenched into tight fists at his sides. In front of him, June stood with a smug, victorious grin, holding a printed background check folder in her hands, while Wesley stood near the window recording the scene on his phone.

Evelyn sat in her wheelchair, her hands flying in frantic, furious signs that June was entirely too arrogant to notice or understand.

"Is that all, June?" Ronan’s voice was dangerously, terrifyingly quiet.

"Isn't that enough?!" June shrieked, emboldened by his calm demeanor. "She lied about who she is! She’s been sneaking around the East Wing, whispering signs to your vegetative mother! For all we know, she’s the one who poisoned the old man four years ago!"

Before June could draw another breath, Ronan spun around with blinding speed.

In two long strides, he crossed the room, grabbed June by the collar of her blouse, and slammed her against the oak wall with enough force to rattle the paintings in their frames. June let out a choked, terrified squeak, dropping the folder to the floor as her feet dangled inches off the carpet.

"You talk too much, June," Ronan whispered, his voice dropping into a register so dark and lethal it made my teeth ache. "And you have a disgusting habit of recording things in my house without my explicit permission."

He ripped the phone out of Wesley’s trembling hand, crushed it instantly beneath the heel of his Italian leather shoe, and tossed June aside like a broken ragdoll. She hit the floor, coughing and gasping for air, scrambling backward on her hands and knees toward the door.