Chapter 1 - The Seventh Nanny
The bucket hit the marble before Marina Oliveira could wipe the ice water out of her eyes.
Three little boys laughed.
One held a phone.
One held the rope that had tipped the bucket.
The third watched her with a smile that never quite reached his eyes.
“Six minutes,” the boy with the phone announced.
“That’s my guess.”
“For what?” Marina asked.
“Until you quit.”
Water ran down her neck and into the collar of her uniform.
Behind her, the front door of the Montenegro mansion clicked shut.
She had twelve dollars in her checking account.
Her rent was nine days late.
Her eight-year-old daughter needed new glasses, and Marina had been pretending the tape holding the old pair together was a temporary fix.
She couldn’t afford six minutes.
“You nanny number seven?” the boy holding the rope asked.
“Apparently.”
“I’m Rafael.
That’s Gabriel.
The quiet one’s Miguel.”
“Thank you.”
He blinked.
“For what?”
“Introducing yourselves.
It’s the first polite thing you’ve done.”
Gabriel raised the phone higher.
Marina removed her soaked shoes, placed them neatly beside the door, and picked up the bucket.
All three boys stepped back.
She turned it upside down and sat.
“Where do you keep the towels?”
Their laughter stopped.
For a moment, the only sound was water dripping onto polished marble.
Then a man spoke from the staircase.
“What happened?”
Dante Montenegro didn’t shout.
He didn’t need to.
He wore a dark shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows.
A thin scar cut through one eyebrow.
Everything about him looked controlled, including the anger settling across his face.
“Apologize,” he told his sons.
Gabriel lowered the phone.
Rafael dropped the rope.
Miguel stared at the floor.
“Now.”
“Don’t make them,” Marina said.
Dante’s eyes moved to her.
The housekeeper standing in the hallway stopped breathing loudly enough for Marina to notice.
“Excuse me?”
“If you force them to say it, they’ll apologize to you.
I’m the one who’s wet.”
Nobody moved.
Marina looked at the boys.
“You can start with towels.
Then you’ll help dry the floor before someone falls.”
Rafael glanced at his father.
Dante gave a single nod.
The boys disappeared down the hall.
“You speak to every employer like that?” he asked.
“Only when I’m sitting barefoot on a bucket.”
Something shifted in his expression.
Not quite a smile.
“You know who I am?”
“I know the job includes three children.
I’d like to focus on them.”
From the hallway, Miguel looked back.
He wasn’t watching his father.
He was watching Marina as if she had just made a promise she couldn’t possibly keep.
Upstairs, a door closed.
May you like
A woman’s voice drifted down.
“Let’s see if this one lasts the night.”
