At night I fell in the mansion, and in the morning I was clutching the boss’s hand in his bed — but his gaze suddenly turned to ice

At the moment when I fell onto the library carpet, I knew exactly that I would lose my job in the morning — but I did not know that that same night the most dangerous man in the house would lift me into his arms.

My body hurt as if sand had been poured into my bones. My left shoulder struck the carpet when I fell, while a low buzzing in my head kept growing louder. I tried to open my eyes, but darkness wrapped around me like a heavy curtain.

The cleaning bottles scattered on the floor slowly rolled away. One hit the wooden cabinet with its head, and a sound like an empty echo filled the entire room.

“Who is there?” a stern voice sounded from above.

Declan Walsh.

At the sound of his name, my heart began beating faster. All the servants spoke about him in whispers, but I had never had a reason to speak with him. To us, he was only a black shirt, cold eyes, and locked doors.

Footsteps slowly descended the stairs.

I tried to stand up, but my left hand did not obey me.

“Mrs. Gable?” I asked quietly, although I knew she could not answer me.

Declan’s footsteps stopped.

“Sophia?”

My name sounded strange from his lips. As if he had kept it somewhere for a long time and was bringing it out for the first time.

“I just fell,” I said. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s nothing? At three o’clock at night, you are lying on the floor in the dark library.”

“It was part of the job.”

My irony came out weakly. In reality, my teeth were chattering.

He came closer to me. First I saw his shoes, then the edge of his black trousers and the glass clutched in his hand. The smell of whiskey mixed with the metallic smell of blood, which I still could not remove from my fingers.

Declan put the glass on the table and bent down.

“Did you hit your head?”

“No.”

“Look me in the eyes.”

“Why? Are you interrogating me?”

Something passed across his face. It was not irritation. It was fear, but it disappeared so quickly that I could not even trust my own eyes.

“Show me your hand.”

“I will get up myself.”

I tried to lean on my feet. My knees immediately buckled. Declan wrapped one arm around my waist and slid his other hand under my shoulder.

“Don’t touch me,” I whispered.

“Then don’t try to fall again.”

“If I am late, Mrs. Gable…”

“Mrs. Gable will still be here tomorrow morning.”

“My salary may be gone.”

“In this condition, you are thinking about your salary?”

“You don’t know how expensive paying for someone else’s illness is.”

Those words slipped out of me without thought. My sister, Elena, had died two years earlier, but her hospital debts still hung around my neck. Every time I paid the rent, I felt an invisible rope tightening around my throat.

Declan said nothing.

He only looked at me.

Then suddenly he lifted me entirely.

His arms proved stronger than I had imagined. My face pressed against his shoulder, and from his shirt came the smell of cold rain and cedarwood. For the first time I thought I might truly have fallen asleep. The second time, I felt how carefully he held me with his right hand, as if I were broken glass.

“Put me down,” I said.

“Where?”

“On the floor.”

“That is not an answer.”

He carried me out of the library. The corridor’s sensor lights illuminated his face one after another. Declan’s eyes were no longer angry, but alert.

On the second floor, we stopped in front of his private bedroom.

“Entry is forbidden here,” I barely managed to say.

“Today I write the rules.”

He opened the door. A fireplace was burning in the room, although rain struck the windows as if the entire city outside were collapsing. He sat me on the bed and removed his hand from my shoulder.

“I’ll call a doctor.”

“No.”

“Sophia…”

“If a doctor comes, everyone will find out. I’ll lose my job.”

“You are sitting on the edge of my bed now, and I am supposed to worry about who will find out what?”

“It is easy for you. If I lose my job, tomorrow I will end up on the street.”

His jaw tightened.

“The doctor is coming. And from tomorrow you will no longer work in this house.”

His words struck me as if I had fallen onto the floor again.

“I knew it,” I said quietly.

“What did you know?”

“That in the end an invisible person becomes unnecessary to everyone.”

Declan bent toward me, but then three short knocks sounded at the door.

He straightened immediately.

“Mr. Walsh,” a man said outside, “a car has stopped at the lower gate. The driver says he has a document for you.”

Declan’s face turned to ice.

His gaze moved toward me for a moment, then stopped on my plastic basket lying beside the bed. Beneath it, a dark sheet of paper was visible, which had followed me from the floor when I fell.

Declan reached toward it…

Declan’s fingers touched the paper, but before he could pick it up, someone knocked on the door again.

“No one comes in until I say so,” he roared.

They fell silent immediately outside.

He took out the paper. He looked at it for only one second, but that one second was enough. His face went pale.

“Did you have this?”

“I don’t know. It was lying on the floor.”

“Where did you find it?”

“In the library.”

He handed the paper to me. My sister’s name was written on it.

Elena Reed.

Below it were her hospital case number and a date that was three days before her death.

“How did this get here?” I asked.

Declan did not answer.

He took out his phone and called someone.

“Leo, lock all the exits. Now.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“The case connected to your sister is not over yet.”

My breath caught.

“My sister died two years ago.”

“I know.”

“Then what does this mean?”

Declan caught my wrist, as if I were about to run out of the room.

“It means someone wanted you to consider her death an accident.”

Heavy footsteps approached beyond the door.

Declan threw the paper into the fireplace, but I saw a small red seal mark remain on its back.

“You’re coming to the clinic tomorrow morning,” he told me.

“What if I don’t come?”

“Then I will come for you myself.”

That night, when I opened my eyes, I was lying in Declan’s bed and clutching his hand in mine. He stood by the window, and on the phone only one sentence was heard:

“The DNA result is ready…”

I heard Declan’s last words when it was seven in the morning and I was looking at the white ceiling of the clinic.

My left shoulder was in a bandage, and my fingers were still holding his hand. I myself could not understand when I had taken hold of it. Probably at night, when pain woke me and I saw his armchair beside the bed.

“Let go of my hand,” I told him.

Declan released me immediately.

“I’m sorry.”

“Were you here all night?”

“You lost consciousness.”

“That does not answer my question.”

“The doctor said you may have a mild concussion.”

“And you decided to hold my hand?”

He looked away.

“You were holding my hand.”

The door opened and Leo entered the room. In his hand he held a thin brown folder whose corners had been folded several times.

“The result has arrived,” he said.

Declan’s face hardened.

“Not here.”

“It is safe enough.”

“I will decide where it is safe.”

Leo looked at me first, then placed the folder on the bed.

“Sophia, before you open this, you should know that the sample was officially taken. We compared your blood, Elena Reed’s old hospital sample, and a third sample kept at the clinic.”

“A third sample?” I asked.

Leo took a heavy breath.

“The woman who brought Elena to the clinic on her last night.”

Declan turned his head toward him.

“Say it directly.”

Leo opened the folder.

“Elena Reed was not your biological sister.”

A thin signal from the monitor sounded in the room.

I did not understand at first.

“What are you saying?”

“The woman you thought was Elena was actually the daughter of Declan Walsh’s mother. When you were born, they replaced you with another record. You belong to the Walsh family bloodline.”

My ears became blocked.

“No.”

Declan stood motionless.

“Say it again,” he said.

Leo turned the paper toward him.

“Sophia’s genetic match with your deceased father is ninety-nine percent. She is your half-sister, Mr. Walsh.”

The pen fell from Declan’s hand onto the floor.

I looked at him, but I could read nothing on his face. For years he had been only the man who left bloody floors and did not notice the servants. Now I learned that his family name had entered my life before my birth.

“Who hid this from me?” I asked.

Leo looked at Declan before answering.

“Your mother. She knew that both children were in danger because of the inheritance. She raised Elena together with you because she thought that would protect you.”

“And why did Elena die?”

This time the silence was heavier.

Declan closed the folder.

“Someone tampered with the brakes of her car.”

“Who?”

The phone rang.

Leo answered, listened for several seconds, and then his expression changed.

“Mr. Walsh, security found a man in the warehouse who is connected with the case from two years ago. He said that the order for Elena’s death came from inside the family.”

Declan took the phone from him.

“Who is it?”

Leo looked toward the room’s door.

“Your uncle, Richard. And he is coming toward the hospital now, because he knows Sophia learned the truth…”