On My First Night in the Billionaire’s House, I Felt a Strange Smell Near the Twins’ Rooms and the Housekeeper’s Face Changed

At the moment Mrs. Harper placed the key in my palm, I understood that everyone in this house was afraid of something — except the person who most of all should have been afraid.

The key was small, heavy, and unusually warm. It resembled old copper, but a small sun was carved on its top, whose rays scratched my finger. Harper quickly closed my hand and walked away as if she were only collecting towels.

“Do not linger here,” she told me quietly.

“What does this open?”

She looked toward the end of the corridor. Doctor Blake was standing there and saying something to Vincent, although his eyes were on us.

“If you want the children to survive, you will open this alone.”

Then she snatched the key from my hand and returned it to me.

“Tonight. When everyone falls asleep.”

My heart was beating so hard that I thought Blake would hear it too. I had come here only as a nanny, but from that moment I already knew that the secret of this house was closer to the children’s beds than anyone was saying.

Lucas and Leo lay in their beds. Both were seven years old and exact copies of each other, but not even a trace of childish mischief remained in their eyes. Lucas held a small wooden airplane, while Leo stared at the ceiling.

“Was it difficult for you to climb the stairs today?” I asked.

Leo nodded.

“My legs feel like sand.”

Lucas quietly added:

“Do not tell Dad. He will make us see the doctor again.”

These words squeezed something in my chest.

“I will tell the truth, not the doctor,” I replied.

A soft yellow light illuminated the rooms. The clock hanging on the wall made a small metallic click every minute. Just then I felt that sweet, floral smell again. It was as if a lilac candle were burning in the room, but a chemical bitterness was hidden beneath it.

I opened the window slightly for the children. In ten minutes Leo’s breathing calmed, and Lucas no longer felt dizzy. This could not be a coincidence.

At seven in the evening everyone gathered together for dinner. Vincent ate silently, while Blake checked his phone. The silver spoons on the table shone so brightly that they hurt my eyes.

“The children are feeling better today,” I said.

Blake raised his head.

“A diagnosis cannot be made in one day.”

“I did not make a diagnosis. I opened the window and the smell disappeared.”

The spoon stopped in Vincent’s hand.

“What smell?”

“The one you cannot smell.”

Blake chuckled.

“Now you are already making the air a cause of illness?”

“You have been treating the children for eleven months and still do not know the cause. I only opened the window.”

Vincent looked sternly at me.

“Claire, enough.”

“No, Mr. Moretti. Enough will be when your children are able to come down the stairs in the mornings.”

Silence fell in the room. In the distance, the heavy hum of the old refrigerator could be heard.

At eleven at night almost all the lights in the house went out. Harper opened the door slightly and stuck her head in.

“Behind the kitchen there is a service corridor. Go down to the basement from there. It is the third iron door.”},{

“Why did you not open it?”

I saw such weariness in her eyes, as if she had been waiting years for this question.

“Because I already tried once.”

“And what happened?”

She touched the cross hanging around her neck.

“Mrs. Isabella told me to trust no one. The next day she died in an accident.”

The air in the basement was damp and cold. Drops of water fell on the floor, while the pipes along the wall trembled in a low voice. I reached the third iron door. The key with the image of the sun fit exactly into the lock.

I heard footsteps behind me.

I turned around. Someone was standing at the end of the corridor. He held a flashlight and was slowly coming toward me.

I took hold of the lock.

The iron door opened, and something inside clicked once, sharply…

Behind the iron door the air was thick and warm. The flashlight first revealed pipes, and then a small device attached to the wall that released air into the children’s rooms while they slept.

A green light blinked beside it.

I heard footsteps behind me once more.

I turned off the flashlight and hid behind the door. Someone entered. The wet floor squeaked beneath his shoes.

“Claire?” It was Blake’s voice.

I held my breath.

He swept the room with the flashlight and went to the device. He removed a small plastic flask, brought it to his nose, and quickly put it in his bag.

“You should not have been here,” he said.

I tore away from the door and ran into the corridor. Blake grabbed my arm, but his fingers caught only the sleeve of my sweater.

“Let me go!”

“You have no idea what you are interfering with.”

“What are you putting into the children’s air?”

His face froze for a moment. Then he regained that same mocking smile.

“It is a cooling substance. It is necessary because of the allergy.”

“For an allergy, children do not lose weight.”

“They will throw you out of the house tomorrow morning.”

“If I tell Vincent, where you were?”

Blake released my arm. Red marks from his fingers remained on my wrist.

“Vincent has already been told everything he needs to know.”

These words pulled the floor out from under my feet. Blake picked up the bag and left, but I listened to his steps for a long time.

At one in the morning I entered Lucas’s room. Both children were asleep, but Leo’s lips were turning slightly blue. I immediately opened the windows and switched off the device’s power button. After several minutes his breathing became regular.

In the morning I entered Vincent’s office. Two phones, three folders, and unopened coffee lay on the black wooden desk.

“I was in the basement,” I told him directly.

His eyes hardened.

“Who let you in?”

“The key Harper gave me.”

“Harper?”

“There is an air-spraying device there. Doctor Blake changes something at night.”

Vincent pushed his chair back.

“Repeat that.”

I placed on the desk the small plastic stopper that had fallen from his bag and that I had picked up from the floor while escaping.

“This is delivered to your children’s rooms through the air.”

Vincent looked at the object. Fear and anger mixed on his face.

“You are not a doctor.”

“But I have eyes. And yesterday, when I opened the windows, the children slept better.”

Harper appeared in the doorway. She held an old linen box in her hands.

“It is time to tell him everything,” she said.

Vincent looked at her.

“What do you mean?”

Harper took a folded woman’s shawl out of the box. The shawl had a small silver clasp on which a cracked leaf was engraved.

“I found this in Mrs. Isabella’s room after the accident. There was a letter inside. The letter said that if the children became weak again, I had to find the one who was treating the house, not the one who was looking after the children.”

Vincent snatched the shawl from her hand.

“Why did you tell me nothing until now?”

“Because Blake told me that next time the accident would happen to my son.”

Her voice broke. For the first time I saw that this woman was not simply frightened. Someone had been threatening her for years.

Vincent opened the letter, but stopped in the middle of a line.

“This is not Isabella’s handwriting,” he said.

“Then whose is it?” I asked.

Instead of answering, Harper took a small memory card from the bottom of the box.

“From the security camera. From the night Mrs. Isabella died.”

At that moment a noise came from the stairs. Lucas was screaming. I ran upstairs and saw Leo lying on the floor, while Doctor Blake was kneeling beside him and doing something to him.

“Take your hands off him!” I shouted.

Blake raised his head.

“If you want him to stay alive, give me that card right now…”

Vincent appeared behind him, holding a phone, but a call had already begun on the screen. Blake then said something that none of us expected to hear…

“If that recording is opened, you will have no children left.”

“If that recording is opened, you will have no children left.”

Blake’s words remained in the corridor like smoke that cannot disperse. Vincent slowly lowered the phone.

“Claire, go to the children,” he told me.

“No, first we have to understand this.”

Leo was sitting on the floor. His face was pale, but his eyes were open. Harper opened the window and moved the children to the bed. I switched off the device again.

Vincent seized Blake by the hand.

“Now you will tell me what you were doing in my house.”

“You cannot prove anything.”

“I have the camera recording.”

Blake lost his color for the first time.

We all went down to Vincent’s office. The clock hanging on the wall showed two at night. Harper placed the small card on the desk, and Vincent opened the old recording on the computer.

A date from four years earlier appeared on the screen. The recording showed the back exit of the garage. Isabella stood there, holding a brown folder. Blake and another man stood in front of her.

The third man’s face was not visible to the camera, but his voice was clearly heard.

“If you tell Vincent that the compound is poisoning the children, you will lose both jobs,” he said.

Isabella answered:

“These children are my sons. You are slowly killing them.”

Blake grabbed her arm.

“We are simply controlling the symptoms.”

“You are weakening them to force their father to sell the property.”

The recording stopped, but then the camera showed the road. Isabella got into the car. Several minutes later, a black car appeared on the screen, following her.

Vincent pressed his hands against the desk.

“Whom does this car belong to?”

Harper lowered her eyes.

“Your brother, Adrian.”

Blake shouted:

“This proves nothing!”

I opened the folder. Inside were laboratory results that had been hidden years ago. The same chemical compound entered the children’s blood every day. In small doses it caused fatigue, weight loss, and nervous weakness. In the long term it damaged the heart and lungs.

“This substance was in the device,” I said. “And its delivery changed every night.”

Vincent looked at Blake.

“You knew.”

“I was carrying out treatment.”

“No. You were poisoning my children.”

Blake stepped back.

“Adrian told me that if the children were weak, you would finally transfer their guardianship to someone else. Selling the property would become easy.”

“Isabella?”

Blake fell silent.

Harper said quietly:

“The accident was not accidental.”

Only the sound of the computer fan could be heard in the room. Vincent’s face became gray.

“Did you kill my wife?”

“I was not driving the car,” Blake said. “But I knew Adrian was waiting for her on the road.”

Vincent lowered his eyes. It was as if, for the first time in four years, he allowed himself to feel the pain.

I picked up the card.

“Call the police.”

Vincent picked up the phone, but at that same moment its screen lit up. A message arrived from an unknown number.

“If you have Blake arrested, the children’s hospital accounts will be canceled. I am starting to move them now.”

Below was a new photograph. Lucas and Leo stood at the entrance of the house. The picture had been taken a few minutes earlier.

Vincent rushed to the window.

A black car stood in the yard.

Its door opened.

And Adrian stepped outside…