Before leaving the mansion, Phei had found Maria in the living room.
She was doing what she always did—polishing something that was already clean enough to perform open-heart surgery on, moving through the space with the quiet, practiced efficiency of a woman who had spent decades erasing rich people's sins from marble and mahogany.
Maria.
The single, glaring anomaly in the Maxton household's otherwise impeccable record of treating him like something unpleasant they'd scraped off their designer soles.
She was in her fifties now, silver threading through her dark hair like someone had decided to garnish her with starlight, hands weathered from years of service but still impossibly gentle. Always gentle.
The woman who had slipped him extra food when no one was looking—here, mijo, you're too skinny, eat this before it goes cold
