Nico’s hand shot out, catching Winnie’s wrist before she could make a sound.
"Stop," he breathed, his voice barely a vibration in the quiet room. "Keep reading the standard terms from page eighteen."
Winnie’s heart hammered against her ribs as the brass doorknob rotated fully.
She forced her eyes back to the papers, though the black letters blurred together.
"The carrier shall maintain liability coverage of no less than ten million dollars," she read aloud, keeping her tone as flat as possible.
The heavy oak door swung inward by three inches.
Giani stood in the gap, his charcoal suit jacket now unbuttoned, his dark eyes fixed entirely on Winnie.
"Winnie," he repeated, his voice dropping its earlier polished warmth. "The kitchen staff needs you downstairs immediately."
Winnie didn’t move from her chair.
She felt the calloused warmth of Nico’s thumb pressing a silent warning against the pulse point of her wrist.
"She isn’t finished, Giani," Nico said, leaning back into the leather headrest of his wheelchair.
Giani stepped fully into the library, pushing the door shut behind him with a soft, definitive click.
"You’ve been in here for forty minutes, cousin," Giani said, his gaze dropping to where Nico’s fingers still rested near Winnie’s arm. "The courier for the Holland contract leaves at five."
"Let him wait," Nico replied smoothly.
"He doesn’t work for us, Nico."
"Everyone in this city works for me if I pay enough," Nico countered, a cold edge slipping into his voice. "Did you leave something outside the door just now?"
Giani’s posture stiffened by a fraction of an inch.
"I came back to check on the progress," Giani lied, walking slowly toward the side of the desk where Winnie sat. "And I heard her stop reading."
Winnie pulled her hands back into her lap, sliding her thumb between pages eighteen and nineteen to hold the place.
"My throat was dry, Mr. Giani," she said quietly, looking straight ahead at the bookshelves.
Giani stopped directly behind her chair, close enough that she could smell his sharp cedar cologne.
"A maid isn’t paid to review corporate freight agreements," Giani murmured, resting his heavy hand on the wooden back of her chair. "Especially one who already enjoys making a spectacle of herself."
"She’s reading what I told her to read," Nico said, his head tilting toward his cousin’s footsteps. "Unless there’s something in these twenty-two pages you’d prefer I didn’t hear?"
The silence in the library stretched tight, broken only by the ticking of the grandfather clock near the hearth.
Giani looked down at the open folder, his eyes narrowing as he noticed the page number at the bottom corner.
He saw page nineteen.
Winnie watched Giani’s right hand slide slowly toward the inside pocket of his suit jacket.
"You’ve become paranoid sitting in the dark, Nico," Giani said, his voice dropping the polite cousin act entirely. "Eighteen months of listening to ghosts while I keep this family afloat."
"By skimming the Holland routes?" Nico asked calmly.
Giani froze.
"Ridgeline Transport Partners," Nico continued, his dark glasses aimed directly at Giani’s chest. "Whose name is on the incorporation papers, Giani? Yours, or Arabella’s father’s?"
Winnie sucked in a shallow breath.
Giani didn’t deny it; instead, a slow, ugly smile spread across his face.
"She was never going to marry a cripple," Giani said softly, his fingers closing around something metallic inside his coat. "And the board was never going to follow a blind man forever."
"So you moved my chair at the altar," Nico said, his voice deadly quiet. "You wanted me on the floor in front of the families."
"You were supposed to look weak," Giani spat, looking down at Winnie with sudden venom. "Until this fat nobody decided to play saint for the cameras."
Giani reached down to rip the leather folder from the desk, his other hand pulling a compact black pistol from his jacket.
Winnie didn’t think about the gun.
She thought about the silver tray she had carried for four years, and the heavy crystal water pitcher sitting right beside Nico’s cold coffee.
As Giani lunged forward to grab the contract, Winnie stood up with all her weight, driving her broad shoulder directly into his chest.
Giani staggered back, surprised by her solid strength, his elbow knocking a brass lamp onto the hardwood floor.
"Winnie, get down!" Nico barked, his hand slamming a hidden button beneath the lip of his oak desk.
A heavy steel lock engaged inside the library door with a loud thud.
Giani recovered his balance and raised the gun toward Winnie’s face, his breathing ragged.
"You stupid cow," Giani hissed, his finger tightening on the trigger.
Before Giani could fire, Nico’s motorized chair surged forward with terrifying speed, ramming directly into the back of Giani’s knees.
Giani buckled with a sharp cry, the pistol skittering across the polished wood as he crashed onto the Persian rug.
Winnie didn’t wait for him to reach for the weapon.
She stepped heavily onto Giani’s outstretched wrist and kicked the gun beneath the low mahogany credenza.
Three seconds later, the secret panel behind the bookshelves burst open, and two of Nico’s armed security men rushed into the room.
"Take him to the cellar," Nico ordered, his chest heaving slightly as he brought his wheelchair to a halt. "And bring me every contract he’s touched since the accident."
Giani cursed violently as the guards hauled him to his feet and dragged him out through the hidden passage.
When the panel clicked shut, the library fell completely silent again.
Winnie stood beside the fallen lamp, her clean uniform wrinkled and her hands finally beginning to shake.
"Winnie," Nico called out, his voice rough with something close to panic. "Talk to me. Are you hurt?"
"No, sir," she whispered, bending down to pick up the scattered pages of the freight contract.
"Leave the papers," he commanded gently, extending his right hand into the empty space between them. "Come here."
She walked over to his chair and placed her trembling fingers into his open palm.
Nico’s hand closed entirely around hers, his thumb tracing the knuckles that had just saved his life and his empire.
"You aren’t ironing my shirts anymore, Winnie Dubois," he said quietly, lifting her hand slightly as if testing its weight. "From this hour on, nobody brings a single page into this room unless it passes through your hands first."
"I’m just a housekeeper, Mr. Valtieri," she said softly.
Nico reached up with his free hand and slowly removed his dark glasses, turning his scarred, sightless eyes toward the warmth of her face.
"No," Nico murmured, refusing to let go of her hand. "You’re the only person in this house who actually sees me."
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