Grumpy Mafia Boss and the Cleaner

Chapter One

Harper Taylor pulled the sheets back from the bed, bundling them into a ball and tossing into the basket.

It was laundry day, and that meant cleaning the master’s bed.

Not that Enzo Castelli ever behaved like a master.

She rarely ever saw him. She was told to always stay out of his way, even though she woke at five in the morning so she could be done with her chores, then study in her bedroom. She’d come to learn his routine.

Enzo was a morning person, waking up roughly the same time as her.

There was one time he woke up and went straight to the kitchen for coffee.

With the cook not getting in until past eight, she’d started to prepare the coffeepot early.

Every morning, before she even got dressed, she’d run downstairs and click the coffeepot on.

She hated seeing the few staff that came into his home most days crying, and that had happened.

She assumed because he could be so blunt and to the point.

Having a live-in position at his home made life easier, and the irony was, it was freeing and she didn’t have to go back to her parents’ house.

Of course, she didn’t see a penny of the money she earned.

Her father had complete control of her bank accounts, and he took everything.

In the two years she’d been here, she had only gotten two hundred dollars at Christmas.

That was it, after twenty-four months of work.

She didn’t even know how much she earned an hour.

Aside from her controlling father, staying in Enzo’s home and doing all her chores, she could do whatever the hell she wanted.

She read the books that were available in his personal library.

There was so much knowledge at her fingertips.

Even though she wasn’t allowed to go to college, and her father forbade it, she was finding her education elsewhere.

She’d started to learn through the books she borrowed and the notes she wrote.

If her father saw this, he’d go mad. He didn’t like the idea of her getting any kind of education. It was hard trying to finish high school. He’d find any number of excuses to take time away from her. She was never allowed to study in front of him either. It had been a constant nightmare.

At least now she had some semblance of peace, and she happened to be good at cleaning.

Enzo’s house had never looked so good, and she put that down to her brilliant organization.

It hadn’t taken long to get some order and a schedule to her cleaning.

Mondays, she always took care of the master’s laundry, as well as cleaned his room.

“What are you doing here?”

Harper gasped and turned around. It was exactly eight-thirty. Enzo left this morning at seven-thirty. On a day like this, he rarely returned home before six at night.

“I’m taking your bedding to be ... laundered.” They were the first words she had ever said to him.

Enzo was a scary-looking man. Well, no, he was a very sexy, handsome, and mature man. Not that she found him attractive. Absolutely not. She stared at him, and his deep penetrating blue eyes stared back at her.

“I’m, uh, I’m Harper Taylor. You hired me two years ago to clean for you.” She moved a little closer, holding out her hand, attempting to be normal, or at least what she determined to be normal, only it felt like it was falling down flat. This was not a good start. This was not even a funny start.

“I know who you are.”

It was then she realized Enzo was bleeding. She quickly rushed toward him, grabbing his arm and shoving all kinds of etiquette right out the window, as she started to pull him into the bathroom. At one point, she was pretty sure he reached for his gun.

Living with her father, who hung around the dredges of society, she was used to people with guns, and blood.

She had lost count of the number of times she woke up screaming because her parents had gotten into a fight.

Her mother always fought back. In the mornings, both her parents would be sporting black eyes, but her mother would get a tiny trinket out of it.

Harper hated life back home.

“Sit,” she said, forcing him to sit on the toilet. Living with a couple of brothers and in a world where everything always seemed to go wrong, she was not squeamish about blood.

She removed his jacket and saw there was a gunshot wound to his arm, but it had an entrance and exit.

“I need to call the doctor,” she said.

“Just patch it up.”

“And run the risk of it getting infected? Not a chance.” She pulled out her cell phone and dialed the number she’d been given in case of emergency.

The man’s name was Kent, and she never asked any questions.

She’d tell him the name, and he’d arrive in less than an hour, which was exactly what happened now, only Enzo refused to be in his bathroom when he arrived.

She walked close to him, making sure he didn’t pass out.

There was a lot of blood, but he didn’t sway, didn’t even seem to go pale.

Harper offered to pour him a whiskey, which he declined.

There was nothing she could do that would make him see sense.

She grabbed a couple of towels in an attempt to stop him from getting blood on the couch.

It was not lost on her that she was bossing her boss around, and there was a chance she might lose her job.

Kent arrived and made his way straight to Enzo’s office. This was not the first time it had happened.

While Kent got to work fixing Enzo, she made her way into the kitchen to get coffee.

The cook, for some odd reason, hadn’t arrived, and she didn’t know why.

In fact, the rest of the staff hadn’t arrived.

They tended to come after Enzo had left in the morning.

She was the only one with a live-in position.

She was not going to say anything to Enzo and run the risk of them getting fired.

They might need this job. For her, it was the only thing she had.

There was no way she was going to run back to her parents.

That was out of the question. She had a horrible feeling if she lost this job, her father was going to marry her off to someone she already hated. She wouldn’t let that happen.

With coffee prepared, she carried them through to the office and was shocked to find Kent already done.

“That was fast,” Harper said.

“You acted quickly, and it didn’t hit any major arteries.” Kent grabbed the coffee and blew across the surface. “You’re going to be seen for a few weeks, but you know the drill. I take it you don’t want anything for the pain.”

“No.”

Kent took another sip, and his cell phone started to ring. “That’s my cue to go.”

“Wait, take your coffee, I can put it in a to-go cup,” she said.

Kent looked toward Enzo, but she didn’t get a chance to see what he said. The doctor nodded his agreement, and she quickly went and got it in a cup ready for him to take.

Within minutes, the doctor was gone, and reality slapped her in the face.

This was her first meeting with her boss, and she had told him what to do and offered a to-go cup to his doctor.

She tried not to wince at what she had done, but it was next to impossible.

This was not what she intended. She liked to stay invisible.

“So, you’re Harper Taylor.”

He was in the doorway of his office, and she turned to look at him. He had a glass of whiskey in his hand, and he smiled at her. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

She had a horrible feeling that was not really the case.

****

Enzo knew exactly who Harper Taylor was. There was no fucking way he was having anyone work for him who was not heavily vetted.

Her father, Bradley Taylor, was a piece of shit, constantly trying to buy favor amongst the Villa Mafia. Enzo knew he was in a long line of men Bradley wanted to impress. His greed knew no bounds.

Bradley offered up his daughter as if she was nothing more than a piece of meat.

He had even hinted at using her for other things, but Enzo hadn’t been interested in that kind of shit.

At least, not two years ago when she was nothing more than a child.

Over the last two years, he’d watched her flourish.

There was no way he would let a person related to Bradley Taylor have free reign in his home.

Harper had shocked him, because not once had she stolen. In fact, other than sneaking into the library to take his books, which she read, made notes, and then slid right back onto the shelf, she was nothing like her father.

There were cameras in every part of his home.

It was how he caught the good from the weak.

He’d lost a few items over the years to thieves that came to work for him.

Some he’d gotten back, others he’d made pay for the theft, and then there were ones he let slip.

Unlike today, where his cook, Murphy, had decided to fall into the hands of the enemy for a quick buck.

That had cost him a chef. It was why, before arriving back home, he fired every single person, besides Harper. Not once did her loyalty sway.

There was a time he thought she had stolen something, and he’d been on a rampage.

It was an ornament that went missing on a shelf.

He never blew anything out of proportion, but he went to the supply room, and that was where he found the ornament, soaking in a solution, with a note telling people not to touch it for twenty-four hours as she was attempting to get the rust off it.

A few days later, the ornament was back on the mantel, the rust gone, and it looked better than ever.

Harper proved herself. Everyone else had not.

“How are you feeling?” Harper asked, coming close to him.

He looked at his near-empty glass of whiskey and shrugged. “Fucked over.”

She let out a wince, and he laughed.

“You don’t like me cussing?”