Chapter 3: The Grand Parlor
The summons came at nine in the morning, delivered not by a guard, but by an elderly footman whose hands shook as he handed me the cream-colored envelope bearing the Bellacorte crest. Helena wanted to see me in the Grand Parlor. Not the informal sitting room where we sometimes discussed menus or floral arrangements, but the formal parlor—the one with the towering floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the manicured hedges and the stone courtyard where black-tinted sedans idled like patient predators.
When I pushed open the double doors, the room felt cavernous and freezing, despite the roaring fire in the carved marble hearth. Helena was seated in a high-backed velvet armchair, draped in emeralds and heavy black wool, her styled grey hair catching the pale morning light like frost on iron. She didn't look up from her porcelain teacup as I entered, letting the heavy silence stretch out until the clicking of my heels against the parquet floor was the only sound left in the room.
"Maria," Helena said, her voice dry as autumn leaves. "Sit."
I didn't sit. I stopped five feet from her chair, keeping my posture rigid, my hands folded over my apron.
Helena finally raised her chin, her heavily ringed fingers resting delicately on the handle of her cup. Her eyes, pale and sharp behind designer spectacles, scanned me from head to toe with an undisguised, clinical contempt. She had always viewed the staff as expensive furniture—useful until stained, then discarded without a second thought.
"Last night, an unfortunate misunderstanding occurred in the dining room," Helena began, her tone chillingly casual, as if we were discussing a misplaced shipment of wine. "Adrian is a valuable asset to this family's enterprises. His methods are... abrasive, perhaps, but he serves a necessary function in keeping external pressures away from Vincent."
"He abused a three-year-old child to get to his father," I said, the words leaving my mouth before I could filter them through the caution Vincent had advised just hours earlier.
Helena’s teacup hit the saucer with a sharp, porcelain crack. Her eyes narrowed into thin slits of ice.
"Watch your tongue, girl," she hissed, leaning forward so the heavy diamonds at her throat caught the firelight. "You are a domestic in this house. You were hired to clean rooms and keep your mouth shut, not to psychoanalyze my business associates. Vincent reacted in the heat of a momentary emotional lapse—a weakness he inherited from his mother, God rest her soul. We are going to correct that weakness."
She slid a thick manila folder across the mahogany coffee table toward me. The corner caught the edge of the rug and stopped.
May you like
"Sign this," Helena commanded. "It's an attestation that Adrian was merely assisting the child after a fall, and that the scene in the dining room was wildly misinterpreted by over-sensitive staff. In exchange, your position here is secured, your wages are doubled, and a trust fund for your boy’s education will be deposited by noon."
I looked at the folder, then up at the old woman who held empires in the palm of her hand. The price of my silence was right there on the table, wrapped in silk and ink.
