Monitor Four

Chapter 01 - Monitor Four

People liked to believe monsters announced themselves.

They imagined men with cruel smiles, men who enjoyed being feared, men who walked into rooms and made everyone understand exactly what they were.

Damian Costa had learned something different.

The most dangerous men rarely needed to announce anything. They simply sat quietly and watched.

At 1:38 in the morning, Damian sat alone beneath the cold blue light of sixteen security monitors buried three floors below his cliffside estate. Outside, the city glittered beyond miles of black water. Inside the bunker, nothing moved except the smoke curling from an untouched cigarette and the second hand of the steel clock above the monitors.

He had spent the previous hour watching men he did not trust pretend to be loyal.

Then his eyes returned, as they had for days, to monitor four.

Room 104.

His mother’s bedroom.

Beatrice Costa had once terrified men twice her size. At seventy-two, Alzheimer’s had stolen her in pieces. Names first. Then years. Then rooms she had lived in for decades.

Some mornings she remembered Damian as her son. Other mornings she called him by his father’s name and asked why he had blood on his sleeves.

On the worst days, she screamed when he entered because she believed he was a stranger trying to hurt her.

Damian had survived bullets, betrayals, investigations, and attempted coups. Nothing had prepared him for being forgotten by the woman who had taught him never to bow his head.

The doctors gave him charts. The nurses gave him medication logs. Everyone had explanations.

Nobody had a solution.

That Tuesday morning, Beatrice had thrown a breakfast tray against the wall. Two nurses retreated. One of them cursed under her breath after closing the door.

Damian heard it through the security microphone.

He made a note of her name.

Then a young woman appeared on the screen.

Pink housekeeping uniform. Cheap white sneakers. Brown hair twisted into a careless bun. No jewelry. No makeup Damian could see.

She pushed a cleaning cart toward the doorway and stopped when she saw the mess.

Damian checked the employee records on the screen beside him.

Tessa Miller. Twenty-six. Housekeeping. Eleven weeks employed.

Nothing remarkable.

She should have cleaned the room and left.

Instead, she parked the cart.

Beatrice was sitting upright in bed, breathing hard, her silver hair wild around her face. Her eyes were frightened and furious.

Tessa looked at the abandoned bowl of oatmeal.

Then at the old woman.

“You don’t like breakfast?”

Beatrice glared.

Tessa picked up the bowl.

“I don’t blame you.”

Damian frowned.

Tessa dragged a wooden chair beside the bed. When she lifted the spoon, Beatrice slapped at it. Tessa moved back before contact. No anger. No insult. She simply studied the woman in the bed.

“They make this stuff taste like cardboard, don’t they?”

Beatrice stopped.

Tessa looked into the bowl.

“I swear they punish people for getting old.”

Something changed in Beatrice’s face.

Damian leaned forward.

Tessa scooped up another spoonful and held it several inches away. No pressure. No baby voice. No command.

“You don’t have to eat it,” she said. “But if you don’t, one of those nurses will come back and give me that disappointed look like this is somehow my fault.”

Beatrice’s mouth twitched.

Damian stared.

He had not seen anything resembling amusement on his mother’s face in days.

Tessa waited.

A full minute passed.

Then another.

Finally Beatrice leaned forward and accepted the spoonful.

Damian’s cigarette burned down untouched between his fingers.

Tessa fed her slowly. After every few bites, she stopped. She talked about nothing important. The rain. The bus being late. A woman at the grocery store arguing with a cashier over expired coupons. Beatrice listened.

Sometimes she understood.

Sometimes she did not.

But she stayed calm.

When the bowl was empty, Tessa wiped Beatrice’s mouth.

“See? We survived.”

Beatrice said something too soft for the microphone.

Tessa leaned closer.

“What?”

“Terrible.”

“The oatmeal?”

Beatrice nodded.

Tessa laughed.

Damian felt his own mouth almost move.

He stopped it.

That should have been the end.

It wasn’t.

The next day, Tessa returned. Then the next. By the third afternoon, the medical staff had begun arranging breaks around her cleaning schedule.

Damian noticed.

So did Paul Ferrell, his head of security.

Paul entered the bunker carrying a folder and a cup of coffee he knew Damian would ignore.

“You’ve been watching the east wing a lot.”

Damian did not turn. “Have I?”

“Monitor four hasn’t left the main display in three days.”

Damian finally looked at him.

Paul raised both hands. “Just making an observation.”

“Observe somewhere else.”

Paul placed the folder on the console. “You wanted information on Miller.”

Damian opened it.

Tessa’s life existed in thirty-seven pages.

Age twenty-six. No criminal record. No husband. No children. Employment history: diner waitress, hotel laundry, home care aide for six months, housekeeping. Two eviction notices. Three collection accounts. Medical debt. A deceased younger sister.

Damian stopped reading.

“What happened to the sister?”

“Leukemia,” Paul said.

“How long?”

“Three years.”

“How old?”

“Twenty-two when she died.”

The room became quieter.

Paul continued, “Tessa paid for treatments insurance wouldn’t cover. She borrowed from three lenders. Bad ones.”

“How bad?”

“Interest that doubles if you breathe wrong.”

Damian flipped through the bills. The numbers were ugly.

“She owes that much?”

“More now.”

Damian glanced at monitor four. Tessa was changing Beatrice’s pillowcase. Millions of dollars in art hung on the walls. A diamond bracelet worth more than Tessa’s total debt lay inside the nightstand. Pain medication sat in a locked drawer Tessa could probably access if she wanted to.

“She hasn’t taken anything?” Damian asked.

“Not that we’ve seen.”

“People steal when they’re desperate.”

“Usually.”

“She’s desperate.”

“Apparently not desperate enough.”

Damian disliked that answer.

People made sense when they were selfish. Fear made sense. Greed made sense. Ambition made sense.

Tessa Miller did not.

On day six, Beatrice became terrified.

Damian was in the middle of a meeting when his phone vibrated with an East Wing alert. He abandoned three men who had traveled from Baltimore to ask for his permission to stay alive and went downstairs.

Beatrice’s room appeared across the largest screen.

A pitcher had broken. Nurses stood outside. Beatrice was screaming.

Then Tessa ran into the room.

She should have waited for medical staff.

Instead she crossed the carpet and lowered herself several feet from the bed.

“Beatrice.”

The old woman looked around wildly.

“Beatrice, look at me.”

Her breathing remained frantic.

“It’s loud today, isn’t it?”

Something about the sentence reached her.

Beatrice stared at Tessa.

“It’s just the noise,” Tessa said. “You’re here. You’re safe. Nobody is coming through that door.”

Beatrice’s shoulders shook.

“I can’t find him.”

Tessa paused. “Who?”

“My boy.”

Damian stopped breathing.

“My boy is gone.”

Tessa’s face softened. “What’s his name?”

“Damian.”

The bunker became painfully still.

Beatrice began crying. “I lost him.”

Tessa moved closer. “You didn’t lose him.”

“He was little.”

“I know.”

“He hates me.”

Damian turned away from the screen.

He had never told his mother he hated her. Not once.

But illness had a way of mixing fear with memories until love came out wearing a stranger’s face.

Tessa climbed onto the edge of the mattress.

“He doesn’t hate you.”

“You don’t know.”

“No,” Tessa admitted. “I don’t.”

Beatrice looked at her.

“But I know people don’t keep a whole room full of flowers for someone they hate.”

Damian looked back.

His mother turned toward the vase beside the bed. White roses. Replaced every morning.

Damian had never told anyone he personally chose them because Beatrice used to grow the same variety behind the house where he was born.

Tessa wrapped the blanket around her shoulders.

“There,” she whispered. “You’re okay.”

Beatrice leaned against her. Within twenty minutes, she fell asleep.

Damian remained in the bunker long after the alert ended.

Something uncomfortable had settled beneath his ribs.

He knew fear. He knew rage. He knew suspicion.

This was different.

Respect, perhaps.

Or worse.

Hope.

The following afternoon, Damian did something he had not done since installing the security system.

He left the monitors.

At 2:15 p.m., he entered the east wing and stopped outside Room 104.

Tessa was inside talking.

“So the mechanic tells me it’s the alternator,” she was saying. “And I’m pretending I know what an alternator does.”

A small laugh.

Beatrice’s.

Damian closed his eyes.

He had almost forgotten that sound.

Then Beatrice spoke.

Her voice was suddenly clear.

Too clear.

“Your sister.”

Silence.

Tessa stopped laughing.

“She died,” Beatrice said.

“Yes.”

“Cancer.”

“Yes.”

Damian’s brows pulled together.

Beatrice had never been told anything about Tessa.

“How do you know?” Tessa whispered.

Beatrice did not answer her.

Instead, the old woman lifted one trembling hand.

“He knows too.”

Tessa went still.

“Who?”

Beatrice pointed directly toward the hidden camera in the corner.

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“Damian.”

And outside the door, the most dangerous man in the house forgot how to move.