Part 4 — The New Maid Broke the Rules Upon Entering My Castle, but One Movement of Hers That Night Silenced Everyone

The call from the clinic suddenly emptied the room.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“I am Doctor Sandro. Marina Carter is no longer here.”

Emma leaned against the wall. The color disappeared from her face.

“How is she no longer here?”

“Her room is empty. The cameras turned out to be switched off. We left only this on the bed.”

I heard the rustle of paper from the telephone.

Luke tried to escape, but a police officer threw him onto the floor. His face pressed against the carpet, and his hands were put into plastic handcuffs.

“Danny,” he called, “I did all this for you!”

For the first time I heard fear in his words.

“No, Luke. You did all this for yourself.”

The police officers took him away.

But Emma was still listening to the telephone.

“What was Mother wearing?” she asked the doctor.

“A dark purple jacket. And a small silver cross around her neck.”

Emma closed her eyes, as if with this description she were trying to bring her mother back.

“She could not have gone alone,” she said.

“I know,” I answered.

That night every door of my house was locked, but for the first time I did not feel that I was sitting in a prison. Police officers walked from room to room, security asked one another who had the key to the cameras and who had signed the last reports.

Luke’s lawyer called me at six o’clock in the morning.

“Mr. Danny, my client says that Mrs. Carter’s disappearance is a scene staged against you.”

“Your client says many things.”

“If the recording is forged, you will not be able to use it in court.”

“Then why are you calling me so early?”

The voice fell silent.

“Because Luke admitted to me too that everything was recorded.”

“Then you are no longer his lawyer.”

“I am no longer.”

The call ended.

An hour later the police found a hidden garage arranged under one of my warehouses. A white van stood there, and Marina’s purple jacket lay on the back seat. In its pocket they found a childhood picture of Emma Carter and a second memory card.

Marina turned out to be alive.

She had been hidden in an abandoned workshop on the outskirts of the city. Luke had not dared to kill her because he was afraid copies of the recording existed. Marina told the police everything. Then, while the doctors were treating the burns on her neck, she asked one thing:

“Is Emma safe?”

When we brought her daughter to her, they hugged each other and both cried at the same time.

I stood at a distance from them.

I could not decide where I should put my hands.

Emma came to me.

“Thank you for finding Mother.”

“You found the truth.”

“You believed me.”

“For the first time in a long while, I believed someone.”

Luke’s case moved quickly. A financial audit showed that for two years he had transferred millions from my accounts. He bought half of the team and frightened the rest. He made deals in my name and told everyone that I was a sick, angry, and incapable man.

I still had to testify in court.

The building was cold. The wheels made an unpleasant noise on the marble. Luke sat in front of me and moved his fingers just as he had that night in my bedroom.

The prosecutor played the recording.

His own voice sounded in the room:

“Danny will die, and I will take his place.”

Luke raised his head.

“This is cut out of context.”

The prosecutor played the second recording.

“If he survives, he will no longer have legs. Such a man cannot lead anymore.”

Silence fell over the courtroom.

Luke sat pale.

And I was listening to my own words, which I had said to others for years: Don’t be afraid, I will protect you; loyalty is everything in a family; whoever is with me is safe.

Now these words sounded like lies in the empty courtroom.

I looked Luke in the eye.

“You could not take my legs,” I told him. “You only took away the illusion that those beside me were my own.”

For the first time he did not answer.

The court sentenced him to a long imprisonment. His property was confiscated, the illegal accounts of my company were frozen, and the employees were given a choice: to remain under the new rules or leave.

I detained no one.

Whoever left, left.

Those who remained, I made read the contracts again.

The second floor of my house was empty for a long time. Only one thing remained in Luke’s room—an old photograph in which we both stood young in front of the warehouse and looked at the camera with laughter.

I did not tear up the photograph.

But I took it out of the frame and put it in a drawer.

The empty room seemed honest to me for the first time.

Six weeks later Emma was still working for me, although she was no longer a maid. She took charge of the company’s human assistance department and created a medical fund for the employees.

And I began walking in rehabilitation.

Not because the doctor promised me a miracle.

I simply no longer wanted to spend my whole life in one room.

Every morning I stood by the window in the wheelchair and looked at the city, which I had previously thought was my property. Now many people lived in it who were not even afraid of my name.

Marina slowly recovered. One day she knocked on the door of my office.

“May I come in?”

“This house belongs to you too,” I told her.

She shook her head.

“No. This house belongs to Emma now. I simply want no one to be afraid here anymore.”

I smiled for the first time.

Months passed.

On the first snow of winter Emma came out into the yard, holding a small sheet of paper. On it was a rough child’s drawing: four people, one tall tree, and a man sitting in a wheelchair who had very large hands.

“This is you,” she told me.

“Why do I have such big hands?”

“Because at last you can hold other people.”

“I cannot walk with my legs.”

“But at least you will no longer allow anyone to walk instead of you.”

That evening I had dinner with her mother. Marina served me soup, and Emma was cutting bread. For the first time no one was whispering in the kitchen, and no one checked any door every five minutes.

The telephone rang.

It was Luke’s number.

Emma turned toward me.

“Do not answer if you do not want to.”

I looked at the call and let it go.

The next day a message came.

“Come see me. I will explain everything. Brothers do not part from each other like this.”

I looked at the screen for a long time.

Then I wrote only one sentence:

“I am no longer the man who needs your explanation.”

I deleted the message.

I went out into the yard.

Snow was quietly falling on the roof of the house. Emma stood by the door and was straightening a shawl on her mother’s shoulder. That small copper key which she had used that night to open the hidden drawer still hung on her apron.

She took the key in her hand and looked at me.

“Are you still afraid?” she asked.

“Sometimes.”

“Then let us lock the door.”

“No,” I told her. “Let us leave it open today.”

The wind moved the key slightly. The small metallic sound rang out in the snowy yard, like a bell at the beginning of a new life.

And for the first time in two years, this sound no longer brought danger.