The presidential suite at the Wisbech Manhattan had transformed into a silent battlefield.
Eros was used to watching powerful men beg for their lives and stunning women sniffing around his money. He exuded a danger that made the bravest soldiers back down. But that Brazilian cleaning lady... that woman was an anomaly that was eating away at his patience.
It all started on Monday. Irritated by Sophia's apathy during their last encounter, Eros decided to test her limits. The moment she walked in to clean the suite, he deliberately tipped a cup of espresso onto the imported Persian rug.
"It's dirty. Clean it," he ordered, crossing his arms, waiting to see fear or outrage in her eyes.
Sophia just looked at the dark stain, blinked twice with those dull, lifeless eyes, and knelt down.
"Yes, Mr. Wisbech."
She didn't complain, didn't huff. She scrubbed the rug until not a single trace remained.
It became a sick cycle that lasted the entire week. Eros acted like a spoiled, sadistic thirty-year-old child, testing his employee's breaking point. On Tuesday, he stomped the soil from the potted plants across the marble floor. On Wednesday, he shredded useless documents and scattered the paper confetti all over the bedroom. If he made a mess ten times, Sophia cleaned it ten times. She spent hours locked in his room, moving like a resilient ghost.
For Sophia, Eros's whims were nothing. Compared to the hell she lived through at home with Owen and her parents, cleaning up after an arrogant billionaire was almost therapeutic. At least Eros didn't hit her, didn't force her to have sex, and didn't pretend to love her. He was just a cruel boss. And cruelty was something she already knew how to handle.
On Thursday, however, the game shifted in tone.
Sophia was stretching the Egyptian cotton sheets over the king-size bed when her uniform sleeve rode up a few inches. She reached her arm across to the other side of the mattress, and the harsh light from the bedside lamp fell directly on her left wrist.
Eros, who was sitting in the armchair pretending to read some mafia reports, locked his eyes on her skin.
Two whitish lines, thick and jagged, cut across Sophia's wrist. Scars from deep cuts. Scars from someone who had tried, more than once, to tear her own life away.
The Don of the American mafia knew the marks of violence like no one else. He could tell the difference between a blade wound from a fight and the surgical, desperate cut of self-destruction. Something clicked in Eros's mind. A suicide attempt. That terrifying apathy, the absence of tears under his humiliations, the unbreakable shell... it all made sense now. She wasn't afraid to die, because she'd already flirted with death.
Part of him — the leader of the Cosa Nostra — should have called security and ordered a background check on that woman to make sure she wasn't a threat or an undercover spy. But the dark side of Eros, the fascinated predator, spoke louder. He didn't order an investigation. He didn't want anyone else getting their hands on his new toy. He was genuinely enjoying himself with her.
On Friday, Eros decided to push further. He grabbed a bottle of five-thousand-dollar whiskey, walked to the center of the bedroom, and let it drop. The glass shattered, scattering the golden liquid and razor-sharp shards everywhere.
"Oops — my hand slipped," Eros sneered, fixing his eyes on her, waiting for the scars on her wrist to make her flinch at the sight of broken glass. "Clean it up. Careful not to cut yourself... again."
There was a split second where Sophia's gaze crossed his. She understood the direct provocation. She knew he'd seen her wrists. But instead of crying or running, Sophia simply grabbed the broom and dustpan.
"Broken glass is easy to pick up, Mr. Wisbech," she said, her voice a calm, cutting whisper that floated across the wide room. "It's what's broken on the inside that takes more work."
Eros felt an invisible punch to the stomach. Sophia knelt and began collecting the glass shards one by one, with surgical precision, without shedding a single tear.
Eros watched her in silence for the rest of the afternoon. The game he'd started to distract himself from the mafia's problems and his grandfather's ultimatum had spiraled out of control. He'd wanted to irritate her, but the one becoming utterly obsessed and intrigued was him. That broken cleaning lady had a self-control that defied his power as Don. And Eros knew that sooner or later, he'd want to find out exactly who had dared to break his little prisoner before he did.
The presidential suite reeked of sin and cynicism. Eros had finished his "entertainment" for the night, and the high-end call girl had already collected her envelope, leaving without a word. He was a meticulously observant man; he knew she hadn't touched anything besides the money. But when he walked to the headboard to grab his limited-edition Patek Philippe watch — valued at nearly half a million dollars — the spot was empty.
The Don of the American mafia didn't tolerate mistakes, much less theft under his own roof. In less than ten minutes, the hotel's head housekeeper had gathered the four employees who'd entered the suite to restock the minibar and tidy the room. Last in line, with those same dull eyes and an impeccable uniform, was Sophia.
What Eros didn't know was that the pantry worker — trembling and desperate over the mistake she'd made by swiping the watch out of pure greed — had seized a moment of distraction in the locker room and hidden the piece inside Sophia's canvas bag.
"A watch disappeared from my nightstand," Eros announced, his voice soft, which made it all the more terrifying. He paced in front of the four women like a judge about to sign a death sentence. "I'll give you one chance. Who took it?"
Silence was the only answer. No one dared to breathe.
"Fine. Search the bags," he ordered the private security guards posted at the door.
The contents of the bags were dumped onto the coffee table. When Sophia's backpack was opened, the Patek Philippe gleamed against the light, tumbling out of a side pocket. The head housekeeper stifled a gasp. Sophia fixed her eyes on the watch, but her expression didn't change. She didn't panic, didn't cry, didn't beg. That goddamn apathy that infuriated Eros to his core was right there, intact.
Eros felt fury pulsing in his neck. He thought he'd figured out the cleaning lady, but the idea that she was just a cheap thief wounded his predator's ego. He wanted a reaction. He wanted to break her.
"I don't tolerate thieves in my empire, and I don't dirty my hands with women," Eros hissed, looking at one of his mafia soldiers — a strong, trained woman who handled security on the floor. "Teach her a lesson. Five good slaps."
The soldier hesitated for a split second, feeling a pang of pity as she looked at Sophia's thin, exhausted frame, but the Don's orders were absolute. She stepped forward and delivered the first slap. The crack echoed through the luxury suite. Sophia's head snapped to the side, her cheek reddening instantly.
Then came the second, the third, the fourth, and the fifth. The corner of Sophia's mouth split, a thin line of blood trickling down. Yet she remained standing. She didn't raise a hand to her face. She didn't shed a single tear. Her eyes remained two dark, bottomless pools.
She wiped the blood from her mouth with the back of her hand, looked Eros dead in the eye, and asked, her voice colder than a New York winter:
"Am I fired?"
Eros stepped forward, fists clenched, jaw locked tight with frustration. That woman's resilience was driving him insane.
"No. You're not fired."
"Good," Sophia replied, straightening her uniform collar with a terrifying calm. "But just a word of advice, Mr. Wisbech... I could sue you for emotional damages and assault. If you'd bothered to check the hallway security cameras before judging me, you'd see I didn't do a thing. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to work."
Eros narrowed his eyes, his mind processing her audacity.
"Your shift's over. Get out of my sight."
"I always pull a double," she fired back without flinching.
"But you've already been in here working for eighteen hours!" Eros snarled, unable to comprehend where that superhuman endurance came from.
Sophia held his gaze for a long second before turning her back.
"I can take more. I can take anything."
Eros stood frozen in the middle of the room. The message hit him hard. She wasn't just talking about the hotel job. She was talking about her life.
***Download NovelToon to enjoy a better reading experience!***
Updated 60 Episodes
Download
Like this story? Download the app to keep your reading history.
Comments