Chapter 1 - THE WOMAN IN THE RED COAT
…and the job might offer everything I desperately needed.
Or it might get me killed.
I looked at Roman Duca for a long moment.
Then I pointed toward Walter.
“I have one condition.”
Vincent actually laughed.
“You’re negotiating?”
“I’ve been homeless for six weeks, not brain-dead.”
Roman’s eyes stayed on mine.
“What condition?”
“Walter gets somewhere warm tonight.”
Walter immediately protested.
“Maggie—”
I raised one finger.
“Don’t.”
Roman studied the old man, then pulled out his phone.
Ten minutes later, Vincent was arranging a room at a veterans’ residence and an appointment with a doctor the following morning.
That was when I agreed.
Three hours later, Roman’s SUV rolled through iron gates outside Chicago and into Ravenwood Estate.
The mansion looked like something from another century—gray stone, black windows, snow covering the roof, Christmas lights wrapped around ancient trees.
Then Roman opened the dining-room doors.
Thirty men turned toward us.
The silence lasted two seconds.
Then somebody laughed.
Another joined him.
Within moments, the entire room was roaring.
Roman removed his gloves.
“Gentlemen, this is Maggie Sullivan. She’s taking over the kitchen.”
The laughter became deafening.
I was still wearing my mother’s faded red coat.
My entire life fit inside one suitcase.
And I smelled like three days without a shower.
A huge man with a shaved head grinned.
“This our new chef?”
“Apparently,” somebody answered.
“Hope she knows how to open canned beans.”
I looked around the room.
“You boys finished?”
The laughter got worse.
Fine.
The next morning, I was in the kitchen before sunrise.
Eggs. Bacon. Biscuits. Potatoes. Coffee strong enough to restart a dead man’s heart.
At 7:02, the giant from the night before reached straight toward a platter with filthy hands.
I brought a steel ladle down beside his fingers.
CLANG.
Every conversation stopped.
“Touch my food like that again,” I told him, “and you’ll be eating oatmeal with a straw.”
His eyes widened.
Then, unbelievably, he smiled.
“Yes, ma’am.”
By the end of breakfast, thirty plates were empty.
Not one man laughed at me again.
I thought that was my first victory.
I was wrong.
Because when I turned around, Roman was standing in the doorway staring at my red coat.
Not at me.
At the coat.
His face had gone completely pale.
“Where did you get that?”
I frowned.
“It belonged to my mother.”
Roman stepped closer.
“What was her name?”
Something in his voice made my stomach tighten.
“Eleanor Sullivan.”
The ladle nearly slipped from my hand.
Because Roman Duca whispered:
“My God.”
Then he locked the kitchen door behind him.
May you like
And said something that changed everything.
“I’ve been looking for your mother for twenty-two years.”
