When the Sick Maid Was Found in His Bed, His Father’s Marriage Deal Collapsed and the Lawyer Suddenly Began to Turn Pale

That night Marcus Reyes found me asleep in the middle of his own bed—with a high fever, wet hair, and a small copper bell clenched in my hand.

It was eleven o’clock in the evening. Outside, icy rain struck the windows as if someone were trying to get inside. In the eastern wing, only the fire in the fireplace gave light, and I was still only half-conscious.

That day I needed to go to the doctor, but the hospital bill amounted to sixty-one thousand four hundred dollars. My younger brother, Eli, was fighting blood cancer, and his next course of treatment began on Friday. If I could not pay that amount, they would stop the treatment.

So in the morning I went to the Reyeses’ mansion even with a fever.

“Are you sick?” Alden, the strict manager of the house, asked me when I entered through the service door.

“I’m just tired.”

He looked at my face and smiled coldly.

“Tiredness does not stop the paycheck. You must finish cleaning the eastern wing today.”

A small white-cloth bag hung in front of me. Inside were Eli’s hospital card and the copper bell he had given me for my birthday. When he was afraid, he rang the bell and told me that I would find him from any room. Now the bell no longer made a sound, but its cold edge calmed my fingers.

I fought for six hours. Sometimes I was cold, sometimes I was burning. When I straightened the bedspread, black spots floated before my eyes.

“Just one minute,” I whispered and sat down on the mattress.

One minute became ten.

I did not know that at the same time Marcus was confronting the man who had stolen goods from his warehouses at the city port. I did not know that Marcus had already decided to start a war with Dario Conti. Nor did I know that Dario’s daughter, Bianca, was offering him marriage that evening, as a deal made in exchange for the western routes.

Marcus did not need women. Everyone said that.

For six years not one woman had stayed with him overnight. Whoever asked for warmth, he showed the door. Whoever asked questions lost his attention forever.

And I was simply his maid. A woman who needed her salary for Eli’s life.

When the black car entered the gate, I was already lying unconscious on the bed. As Marcus climbed the stairs, he thought only about his own headache. He expected neither tenderness nor unexpected responsibility.

The door to his bedroom opened.

Marcus stopped on the threshold. First he looked at me, and then at my hand fallen over the edge of the bed, where the small copper bell lay motionless in my grip.

“Who let her in here?” His voice was low, but the whole room felt it.

Alden rushed to the door.

“Mr. Reyes, I will handle it.”

“No. First tell me why she is breathing like that.”

Alden bent toward me.

“She is probably pretending. People like that seek attention.”

Marcus’s face hardened.

“Call the doctor.”

“The doctor at this hour?”

“Now.”

I tried to say something, but only repeated Eli’s name. Marcus heard it. He bent beside the bed and placed the back of his hand against my forehead.

His fingers suddenly stopped.

“This fever is no joke,” he said.

Then a folded paper fell from the pocket of my coat and spread across the wooden floor. Marcus picked it up. First he looked at the numbers, then his expression changed.

“Sixty-one thousand four hundred?” he said quietly.

I could not open my eyes.

Someone knocked on the door. His lawyer, Victor Hale, entered the room. He held a leather folder and had the expression of someone who was about to say something that would change the fate of the whole house.

“Marcus, you must see this before Dario comes here.”

Marcus did not take his eyes off me.

“Put the folder on the table.”

Victor took one step forward. Then he stopped.

“No. I must hand this directly to you.”

Marcus slowly reached toward the folder. And I, in the darkness of the fever, still did not understand that my brother’s bill was not the only secret that night…

Marcus placed his hand on the folder, but before he opened it, the doctor arrived. He measured my temperature and his face changed.

“Thirty-five?” Victor whispered.

“Not thirty-five, thirty-nine point nine,” the doctor said angrily. “A little more and she would have lost consciousness.”

Marcus looked at Alden.

“How long has she been working like this?”

For the first time Alden said nothing.

“All week,” I answered without opening my eyes.

Marcus bent toward me.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because sick people are not paid.”

Silence fell over the room.

The doctor gave me medicine, then took Marcus aside.

“She needs rest, fluids, and supervision. Do not leave her alone.”

“I am not going to take care of her,” Marcus said.

But when the doctor left, he himself brought me water.

I could barely hold the glass. My fingers were trembling. Just then noise came from the stairs. Dario Conti entered, together with Bianca and two guards.

“I came about my daughter’s matter,” he said.

Marcus picked up the folder.

“We will not talk about the wedding today.”

Dario saw me on the bed and smirked.

“A maid in your room? Now I understand why you no longer want marriage.”

Marcus’s gaze became like a frozen window.

“Say that again.”

Dario could no longer make a sound.

Victor opened the folder. His fingers stopped on the very first page.

“We obtained this document this morning,” he said. “But there is not only one page here. Someone hid the second part.”

At that moment the light in the corridor went out. In the darkness my little copper bell rolled across the floor and rang once, very quietly…

Everyone heard the sound of the bell in the darkness.

Marcus turned on his phone’s flashlight and saw that the bell had stopped under the bed. I moved my hand, and a small cloth bag appeared behind it.

“That is mine,” I said in a hoarse voice.

“Why was it under the bed?” Marcus asked me.

“I don’t know. It probably fell.”

Victor picked up the bag. Inside were the bell, Eli’s card, and a small memory card.

The color disappeared from Dario’s face.

“What is that?” he asked.

I tried to get up from the bed, but Marcus placed a hand on my shoulder.

“Don’t move.”

“My brother found the card,” I said. “In the hospital storeroom. Where his medicines were kept.”

Marcus looked at Victor.

“Turn it on.”

Victor connected the device to the television. First there was static in the room, then a man’s voice.

“The money will go to Dario’s account. Reyes will think the theft was the warehouse manager’s doing.”

A second voice answered:

“And the girl?”

“The girl is already working at the mansion. A sick brother is the best shackle. If she resists us, we will end his treatment.”

My breath caught.

A third voice sounded on the recording. It was Dario’s voice.

“Marcus needs marriage. While he turns his attention to Bianca, the girl will hear everything in his rooms. If necessary, she herself will disappear.”

Bianca covered her mouth with her hand.

“Father, what have you done?”

Dario stepped back.

“This is fake.”

Victor took other papers from the folder.

“No. Here are the hospital transfers, the names of Dario’s people, and the money additionally deposited into Eli’s treatment account so that Sedi would work here. He did not find her a job. You brought her here.”

Marcus looked at me.

“Did you know this?”

Tears came from me by themselves.

“I only knew that someone had paid the first bill. I thought it was a kind donor. Then they hired me and told me that if I asked questions, Eli’s treatment would be stopped.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Every door in your mansion has a guard. I thought you were like those people too.”

Marcus looked toward Dario.

“You stole my money, blackmailed a girl in my name, and now you want marriage?”

Dario reached toward his weapon, but Marcus’s guard acted faster. Bianca began to scream.

At that same moment Marcus’s phone rang. He answered and listened silently for several seconds.

“Who is it?” I asked.

Marcus slowly lowered the phone.

“The hospital. Eli’s condition has worsened. He urgently needs blood.”

Victor turned over the second page and looked at him frightened.

“Marcus, this is not yet the worst. The transfers do not concern only Eli’s bill. The last signature was made this morning. If we cannot return this money, the whole clinic will close and dozens of patients will lose treatment.”

Marcus lost his calm for the first time.

“And who is the signer on the account?”

Victor turned the paper toward him.

“Your late father’s foundation.”

Marcus could not answer. Dario, however, smiled quietly, because he still did not know that the last hidden record remaining in the foundation had been preserved by my little bell…