My Maid Suddenly Asked Me for Money and to Leave, but the Scene I Saw at the Hospital Door Made Dominic Gallow Go Pale

That evening my maid ran up the hospital stairs, while I followed behind her without a weapon, because for the first time I was afraid not of the enemy, but of the truth.

It had been three weeks since Linda had been walking around my house as if an invisible rope were wrapped around her neck. She would have been twenty-four. Her mouse-colored hair was always tied up severely, and the gray uniform looked too wide on her thin body. She never spoke unless I addressed her, never asked for anything, and never looked anyone in the eyes.

In my world, such changes do not happen by chance.

One Tuesday, at six in the evening, the coffee cup slipped from her hand in my study. Crystal fragments scattered across the wooden floor, and one stopped beside my shoe. Linda bent down, but her hands were trembling so much that she could barely hold the broom.

“Mr. Gallow, I will clean everything,” she whispered.

“Raise your head.”

She slowly looked at me. There was no fear left in her eyes. Only exhaustion remained, so deep as if her whole life had already ended.

“Is someone threatening you?” I asked.

“No, sir.”

It was a lie. Small, careful, but obvious.

That night I could not sleep. The extinguished smell of cigar hung in my study, and that one crystal fragment remained on the desk. It was still there in the morning. I did not throw it away.

Then Linda got used to coming late. Once she came at ten in the morning, her hair wet from the rain, and an old brown bag clung to her chest as if her life were inside it. Twice I caught her at the door of my study while I was talking with my men inside.

I opened the door.

“What were you listening to?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“You were looking at my door for three minutes.”

“I was waiting for when you would need me.”

Her voice was hoarse. And I immediately understood that someone was pressuring her.

On Tuesday, at four in the afternoon, she entered my study again. Rain ran down the windows in long, black streaks. Linda’s fingers were interlocked, and the skin around her nails had been bloodied.

“Mr. Gallow, may I ask you for something?”

“Say it.”

“I want to take two months’ salary in advance. And I have to leave today at three o’clock.”

I slowly rose from the chair.

“Two months’ money and leaving that same day? Who are you running from?”

“No one.”

“Another lie.”

She bit her lip.

“It is a personal matter. Please, I have no choice.”

I took a bundle of money from the drawer and threw it onto the table. A heavy sound rang out.

“Take it.”

Linda took the money with both hands and hugged it to her chest. Her eyes closed for a moment, as if she had come out of the water.

“Thank you. I will never forget this.”

“I hope you will not forget me either.”

She did not understand what I meant. She quietly closed the door.

Five minutes later I was sitting in a gray car. I had my weapon with me, but I had not checked the bullets. For the first time I wanted an answer and not punishment.

At three-oh-five the service door opened. Linda came out, her bag pressed to her chest, and walked toward the corner of the street. I followed her from a hundred meters away.

She did not stop a taxi. She did not get on a bus either. She headed straight toward the hospital.

At the entrance she suddenly stopped, took out her phone, and called someone.

“I brought the money,” she said. “But please, do not take us out today.”

For the first time my heart struck strangely.

Linda went up the stairs. I followed behind her and stopped at the glass door. Inside, a woman in a white coat was waiting for her, holding a dark folder. The doctor took Linda’s hand and said something to her with such an expression that Linda’s knees gave way.

I opened the door.

The doctor looked at me immediately. Linda, seeing me, covered her face with her hands.

“Who are you?” the doctor asked.

“A man who needs an answer now.”

The doctor put the folder on the table and reached out to open it…

Her fingers touched the edge of the folder, but Linda jumped forward and gripped my wrist. Her fingers were cold as ice.

“No, Mr. Gallow. Please, not here.”

“Who is this child?”

The doctor looked worried.

“First I must ask you, are you her guardian?”

“I am only her mother,” Linda said.

She pronounced the word “mother” as if she were confessing to a crime.

A child’s cough sounded from the corridor. It was a thin, quiet sound, but Linda immediately turned around. And through the glass door I saw a little boy wearing a white cap on his head. He was sitting on a bed and holding a small wooden ship in his hand.

The boy smiled at Linda.

“Mom, did you find the money?”

Linda’s lips trembled.

“I found it, Luka.”

Something inside me broke. In the face of the six-year-old child I saw strangely familiar features, although I did not allow myself to believe it.

“Does he need surgery?” I asked.

The doctor sighed.

“Today. If the money is not paid, we cannot continue the treatment.”

“How much?”

“It has already been paid,” Linda said. “I simply have to return this money.”

“To whom?”

She answered me not with a word, but with a look. At the end of the corridor stood a man in a black coat. My head of security, Victor Baron.

Why was he here?

Victor brought the phone to his ear and smiled.

“Dominic,” he said, “I think it is time for this story to no longer remain only between you and Linda.”

Linda gripped my arm so strongly that her nails sank into my skin.

“Do not listen,” she whispered. “You do not know what they will do.”

Victor slowly came toward us, took a folded sheet from his pocket, and placed it in front of me.

“It is the child’s birth certificate. Read it, Dominic.”

I reached for the sheet, but Victor added one more thing first.

“You already know the mother’s name. But the father’s name will change your life completely…”

After Victor’s words, only the intermittent sound of the monitor could be heard in the hospital corridor. Linda’s hand was still on my arm, but now I could feel how she was losing strength.

I took the sheet. The child’s name was written on the birth certificate: Luka Morel. Mother — Linda Morel. The father’s field was empty.

“This proves nothing,” I said.

Victor chuckled.

“That is why I brought a second document too.”

He handed the doctor a small sealed envelope. The doctor looked first at Linda, then at me.

“This test was conducted two days ago,” he said. “The patient’s mother signed at my request.”

“Why did you not tell me?” I looked at Linda.

Tears stood in her eyes.

“Because I knew what kind of person you were. I knew you would take my child from me, as you take everything.”

“I did not know I had a child.”

“That is exactly why I came to work in your house. I wanted to protect him from nearby. Victor told me that if I revealed the truth, I would never see Luka again.”

Victor smiled sternly.

“And now he will have to kill him because of your name.”

“Shut up,” I told him.

The doctor opened the envelope. Inside were several sheets and a small transparent bag. Samples from me and Luka were together with the conclusions of three different laboratories.

The doctor read aloud:

“Probability of paternity: ninety-nine point nine percent.”

My knees lost their strength. I leaned against the glass wall. I looked at the little boy. He had a small scar near his left eyebrow like mine. The same dark eyes. The same habit of tilting his head.

Linda hid her face in her hands.

“He is your son, Dominic.”

I lost six years in one second.

Luka called to me from the bed.

“Are you the man whose house Mom works in?”

I could not answer. I knelt in front of him.

“Yes.”

“Mom told me you were not a bad man. You were just very sad.”

These words stopped Victor’s laughter.

“Enough,” he said. “You cannot take the child out of here. And you will not survive either if this story gets outside.”

He took out his phone and showed me the screen. It was a photograph taken in my house: Luka, Linda, and me, a few minutes earlier, in the hospital corridor.

“Your enemies will see this in the morning,” he said. “But there is one thing you do not know, Dominic. The woman who hid your child for six years was not acting alone.”

“Whom do you mean?”

Victor opened a new message on the phone. My mother’s signature was visible on the screen.

“Your family,” he said. “And your mother requested a meeting tonight…”

At that moment my phone rang. My mother’s number lit up on the screen. If I did not hear the call, Linda’s and Luka’s lives would remain in danger. If I answered, I might already be walking into a trap…