The Mafia Boss Paralyzed Me Hired Me, but When a Strange Box Was Found in His House, the Lawyer Stopped Smiling

That evening, when my car died at the iron gates of the mafia boss, I still did not know that I would never leave this house with the same life again.

The engine coughed three times and fell silent. I gripped the steering wheel with both hands and counted to four, as they had taught me in the resuscitation unit. Inhale. Hold. Exhale. There was no result.

I had seven lari and several tetri in my bank account. The final deadline for paying the rent expired in five days. On the back seat lay one bag, two shirts, and a small copper whistle that my mother had given me on my first day working at the hospital.

“If someone frightens you, blow into it,” she had told me then. “Fear is afraid of noise.”

Two men stood at the iron gate. Both wore black suits, and both had weapons hanging from their belts. Usually, people do not look such men in the eyes. But I got out of the car and called loudly:

“I came for the caregiver job. If either of you is the patient, I will turn back immediately.”

They looked at each other. Neither of them smiled.

The gate opened.

The road to the house was so long, as if they had specially built it so that guests would lose the desire to turn back while still on the way. My large, worn boots made noise on the gravel. With every step, I thought the house was rising higher and I was becoming smaller.

Inside, it smelled of cedar, old cigars, and damp stone. None of the clocks in the corridor worked, but somewhere inside, something ticked monotonously.

“In this house, even time moves with permission,” I thought.

The door of the study was open. A man had his back turned to me. He sat in a wheelchair that shone as if it were a weapon.

“You are twenty-two minutes late,” he said. “You even breathe loudly. Eleven caregivers have come before you. Not one stayed longer than two weeks.”

I put the bag on the floor.

“Then perhaps you should not look for the reason in them.”

The chair slowly turned.

Enzo Marchetti looked at me with broad shoulders, a scar cut through his eyebrow, and eyes cold as a winter lake. A black tattoo showed near his neck. He held a glass of whiskey in his hand, but his fingers were trembling.

The glass fell to the floor and shattered.

I did not jump. I looked at him and said:

“You absolutely must pick this up before someone catches their foot. A wet floor, a carpet, and wheels are a bad combination.”

For the first time, something moved in his eyes.

I went to the chair, pulled back the blanket, and saw his legs. The muscles had almost disappeared. Red spots and neglected wounds showed on the skin.

Enzo grabbed me by the wrist.

Very strongly.

I did not run away. I did not make a sound. I only looked into his eyes.

“If I work here, I need to know what I am caring for,” I told him calmly. “You are trying to hide not a person, but your own body.”

His fingers slowly loosened.

A heavy silence fell over the room. For the first time, I saw the frightening expression that the whole city knew break apart on his face.

“You will stay,” he said at last.

“Tell me the salary first.”

The guard standing behind him held his breath.

Enzo smiled almost imperceptibly.

“Five times more than anywhere else.”

“Then I demand twice as much.”

His smile immediately left his face.

That night, when I left the room, I did not know that a folder with my name was already lying in the bottom drawer of his desk. Inside were my past, my brother’s debt, and photographs taken in front of the diner—photographs taken before I even knew of his existence.

At the end of the corridor I heard the sound of heavy footsteps. Then the lock turned, and the man in the black shirt looked at the sealed folder in his hand. His fingers slowly reached for the lock…

His fingers touched the lock, but he did not open the folder immediately.

“This room is not for staff,” the man told me.

“Then why are you standing in the staff corridor?”

The man clenched his jaw. Later I learned that his name was Luka and that he was considered Enzo’s most loyal guard.

“You were not hired here to ask questions.”

“I was hired here to care for a patient. If you are hiding something in the patient’s house, questions are part of my job.”

The folder’s lock jammed in his hand. This small detail frightened me strangely. Luka looked like the kind of man even metal objects obeyed.

“Go to your room, Reni.”

“First tell me why my name is on this folder.”

The corridor light flickered once. Luka pressed the folder to his chest and stepped back.

“Because Enzo wanted it that way.”

That night I could not sleep in the room assigned to me. Clean sheets lay on the bed, and a small wooden drawer stood by the window. Inside were a list of medicines prepared for me, a work schedule, and the exact amount of my brother Gabe’s credit debt.

Gabe himself did not know how much he owed.

The paper shook in my hand.

“How can a person know my family’s debt when he has not even mentioned my surname once?”

The next morning, at six o’clock, I entered Enzo’s room. The windows were closed, the heating was off, and the medical device beside the bed glowed silently.

“The physiotherapist will come today,” I said.

“He will not come.”

“He will.”

“I sent him away.”

“Then I will bring another.”

“You are the eleventh person who says that.”

“And I may be the first who locks the door so that you cannot escape.”

His gaze hardened.

“I am not running away.”

“No. You are simply dying a little every day and calling it dignity.”

The sound of breathing was heard in the room. Enzo gripped the bed rail with his hand, but his fingers trembled again.

I spread the blanket properly and looked at the wounds.

“We cannot treat these wounds at home. We have to go to the hospital.”

“People will see.”

“Then put on a hat.”

“I am Enzo Marchetti.”

“And I am Reni. At this moment, neither of us cares who you are. Your wounds have festered.”

To my surprise, he remained silent.

That afternoon I took him into the yard for the first time. After the rain, the earth smelled of wet leaves. I put a small wooden board under his chair so that the wheels would not sink. Enzo looked at me as if I, rather than the whole world, had insulted him.

“You are not afraid?” he asked.

“I am afraid.”

“Then why do you speak like that?”

“Because fear and obedience are not the same thing.”

His face changed strangely.

That evening, I was standing alone by the coffee machine in the kitchen when I noticed a small red light hidden in the wall. It was a camera. There was another in the corner of the ceiling. I could see the third in the mirror’s frame.

“You have already found it?” Enzo’s voice sounded behind me.

I turned around.

“How many are there?”

“How many what?”

“Cameras.”

“Enough.”

“I am your caregiver, not a prisoner.”

“In this house, the difference often disappears.”

“Not for me.”

He came closer in his chair. On the table beside him lay a black leather notebook. The wind turned the pages, and for one second I saw my name, then dates, places, and one short note: “Gabe—do not touch.”

Enzo immediately closed the notebook.

“Why is my brother’s name written there?”

“Because your brother has problems.”

“I already knew that.”

“You do not know who created them.”

Cold poured through my body.

“You?”

For the first time, Enzo looked away.

“Not me.”

That same night Gabe called me. His voice sounded like a whisper.

“Reni, leave that man’s house.”

“Why?”

“Because two men came to me today. They told me that if you did not leave there, everything about you would be spread throughout the city.”

“Who were they?”

Heavy breathing sounded on the other end of the line.

“One said that Marchetti gives people not jobs but debts.”

I went to the window. Luka stood in the yard and looked upward, toward my room.

“Gabe, lock the door. Do not open it for anyone.”

“You come too.”

“I cannot leave yet.”

“Why?”

At that moment something heavy fell in Enzo’s room. Then I heard his voice:

“Reni! Come here immediately!”

The phone remained stuck in my hand.

Wherever I was, I understood that this job had never been only a job. But the answer Enzo was asking of me this time connected my brother, my debt, and the secret hidden in this house at one point.

When I entered the room, Enzo was sitting at the desk. In front of him lay the sealed folder taken from Luka.

“Sit down,” he told me.

“First tell me why you were watching me.”

Enzo placed his hand on the folder.

“When you open this, you will no longer be able to tell me that you came here by accident.”

The lock lifted slightly…

The lock lifted slightly, then Enzo stopped his fingers.

“Before you open it, there is one thing you must know,” he said. “If you stay after this, my enemies will become your enemies too.”

“They already have.”

“You may not survive.”

“After the first week of working with you, that news is no longer news.”

I saw such exhaustion in his eyes that no medicine could hide it. He pushed the folder toward me.

“Open it.”

I lifted the lock.

Inside lay photographs. The first photograph was of my brother Gabe as he was leaving the loan office. The second was of me by the back stairs of the hospital, on the day I finished the night shift. In the third, I stood in front of the diner and handed Gabe an envelope.

The date was written on the back of the photograph. Three months before I first met Enzo.

“Explain this to me,” I said.

Enzo lowered his head.

“Your brother was not avoiding a debt. They forced him to cover up funds from the clinic where I was receiving treatment.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

Luka locked the door.

“The head of the clinic, Dario Valenti, was Enzo’s enemy,” he said. “He not only took the money, but was also there that night when Enzo was driven into the ravine by car.”

Enzo’s hands tightened on the armrests of the chair.

“The accident was not accidental,” he said. “They damaged the car’s brakes beforehand. Dario wanted me dead. When I survived and was left paralyzed, he began intimidating my people.”

“Where did Gabe become involved?”

“He saw something,” Enzo answered. “That night he was working as an assistant at the clinic. He saw a man come out of my room. Then Dario’s people burdened him with a debt so that he would keep silent.”

I looked at the photographs, and my hands grew cold.

“But why were you watching me?”

This time Enzo did not answer for a long while.

Luka pulled out another sheet. It was an old hospital certificate, with water stains on the edges.

“Your mother, Marina,” Luka said, “worked at the same clinic.”

My breath caught.

My mother had died eleven years earlier. All my life I had thought that an ordinary heart attack had taken her.

“No,” I said. “My mother had nothing to do with this matter.”

Enzo looked me in the eyes.

“She did. She saved my life. Before the operation, she refused to replace my medicines for Dario. Because of this, they threatened her. You and Gabe were still children then.”

“You knew my mother?”

“She was the last person who told me that I must not become evil in order to survive.”

For the first time, his voice broke.

“I could not repay her debt. Dario transferred her to another clinic. She died there. Officially, from an accidental complication.”

Silence descended in the room.

In my memory appeared my mother’s hands—warm, smelling of washing soap, with a small burn on one finger. She had never mentioned Enzo Marchetti.

“Then why did you offer me the job?”

Enzo handed me the last sheet in the folder. It said: “Reni—do not let Dario’s people find her.”

“Because Dario finally reached you. Gabe’s debt was his trap. I brought you here to protect you.”

“Protect me? With cameras and surveillance?”

“I did not know another way.”

“You know everything about me, while I knew nothing about you.”

His face went pale.

“I know.”

At that moment there was a powerful knock on the door. Luka put his hand on his weapon.

“Who is it?” he shouted.

In response, a woman’s voice came from the corridor:

“Police. We have a search warrant.”

Enzo looked toward me.

“These are not Dario’s people,” I said.

Luka looked toward the curtain. Three cars stood in the yard.

I pressed the folder to my chest.

The door opened, and a uniformed woman stepped into the room.

“Enzo Marchetti, you are under arrest for money laundering and ordering a murder.”

The man standing behind her said my name.

“Reni, we know where you were that night.”

I saw on Enzo’s face a fear that did not come from his paralyzed body.

“This is impossible,” he whispered.

The woman raised a small memory card in her hand.

“No, Enzo. What is impossible is that you thought everything was only against Dario.”

And then I understood for the first time that the photographs I had seen in the folder were only half the truth…