Chapter 2 - The Fever in the Staff Quarters
Two security guards entered the study thirty seconds later, holding Harland by his arms and dragging him toward the back exit. His pathetic pleas echoed down the hall until the heavy oak doors shut, sealing the quiet back into the house.
I looked down at Nora. She was staring at me with wide, terrified brown eyes, completely stunned by what had just happened.
"Is... is Mr. Harland gone?" she whispered.
"He's gone, Nora," I said, my voice softening as I crouched down to her eye level. "He is never coming back to this house again."
She looked at the wet shirt still tucked under her arm. "Did I still do bad?"
"No," I said firmly, taking the cold, heavy fabric from her small hands and setting it aside on the mahogany desk. "You did nothing wrong. Not today, and not yesterday."
I picked her up gently. She weighed almost nothing—far too light for a healthy three-year-old child. Her small body was still shivering from the cold sink water. I wrapped her in my heavy cashmere suit jacket, burying her small frame in the warmth of the fabric.
"Show me where your mommy is," I said.
Nora pointed toward the service elevator that led to the ground-floor staff quarters—a wing of the mansion I had rarely visited in the eight years I had owned the estate.
The staff quarters were clean, but stark and drafty. At the far end of the narrow hallway, behind door number four, a faint coughing fit could be heard.
Nora tapped her tiny hand against the wood. "Mama? Mr. Luca is here. He’s not mad."
The door opened slowly.
Standing in the doorway was Elena. She was twenty-six years old, but her face was gaunt, flushed red with a burning fever, and dark purple circles bruised the skin beneath her eyes. She was wearing a thin cotton robe, clutching a damp cloth to her neck.
The moment her eyes landed on me holding her daughter wrapped in my jacket, her face drained of what little color remained.
"Mr. Luca!" Elena gasped, her voice hoarse and broken. She immediately tried to bow her head, clutching the doorframe to keep from collapsing. "I'm so sorry, sir! I... I fell asleep... I told Nora to stay in the room... I am so sorry, please don't fire us!"
"Elena, stop," I said, stepping past her into the small room.
The room was neat, but painfully sparse. A single twin bed sat in the corner, covered in thin blankets. A small drawing desk with crayons sat beside it, along with a half-empty box of cheap crackers and a cold cup of tea.
I set Nora down on the bed, pulling the thick duvet over her cold legs.
"Your daughter was in the main laundry room scrubbing my clothes in freezing water," I told Elena, turning to face her. "She believed that if she didn't clean my shirt, you would lose your home."
Elena pressed her trembling hands against her face, breaking into ragged, helpless sobs. "Harland... Harland said he would throw our things into the driveway if I didn't complete the laundry by five o'clock. I couldn't get out of bed, Mr. Luca... my head was spinning... Nora must have snuck out while I was unconscious..."
She fell to her knees on the linoleum floor, weeping openly. "Please... I have nowhere else to go. My husband died before Nora was born... my family turned their backs on me... this job is all we have."
Looking at her kneeling on that cold floor, the phantom pain in my own chest burned like fire. I saw my own mother—twenty years ago—kneeling in a dark apartment in Chicago, crying over an eviction notice while I stood in the doorway holding a broken toy.
"Get up, Elena," I said softly, reaching down and taking her by the elbow to lift her to her feet.
"Mr. Luca...?" she sobbed, looking at me with absolute confusion.
"You are not fired," I said clearly. "Starting today, you are off duty until you are completely healthy. And Harland will never touch a single person in this house ever again."
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Before she could process my words, I pulled out my phone and dialed my private physician.
"Dr. Aris," I said into the phone. "I need you at the estate immediately with an IV drip, broad-spectrum antibiotics, and a pediatric specialist. Now."
