Chapter 2 - Rules Nobody Explained
The woman on the landing introduced herself as Beatrice Vale.
“I manage the household.”
She said it while looking at Marina’s wet uniform, as though Marina had chosen to arrive that way.
Rosa, the housekeeper, brought dry clothes and showed Marina to a small bedroom beside the children’s wing.
“The bathroom is yours,” she said.
“Dinner is at six.”
“Who was the woman upstairs?”
“Mr. Montenegro’s sister-in-law.
His late wife’s sister.”
That explained the photograph on the bedside table in the boys’ playroom.
A woman with dark curls.
Three babies across her lap.
Dante behind her, smiling like someone Marina hadn’t met.
“How long ago?”
“Eighteen months.”
Rosa straightened a curtain that didn’t need straightening.
“And the boys have had six nannies since?”
“None stayed long.”
At lunch, Marina learned why.
Gabriel slid a dead spider beside her plate.
Rafael announced that he had put glue in her shampoo.
Miguel ate without looking up.
Marina placed a glass over the spider.
“Thank you for telling me about the shampoo.
You’ll help replace it.”
“You can’t make us,” Rafael said.
“No.
But you can’t use the game room until we fix what you damaged.”
“Our dad owns the game room.”
“Then you’re lucky.
It’ll still be here tomorrow.”
Gabriel laughed before remembering he wasn’t supposed to.
Marina pointed at his phone.
“Delete the video.”
“No.”
“Would you want strangers watching your worst moment?”
His fingers tightened around it.
“It wasn’t your worst.”
Something in his voice made her pause.
“No,” she said quietly.
“It wasn’t.”
Across the table, Miguel finally looked up.
That afternoon, Beatrice walked Marina through the house.
The instructions came quickly.
No photographs.
No visitors without approval.
No questions about Dante’s work.
Then they reached a closed door at the end of the west hallway.
“Never enter this room.”
“Is it unsafe?”
“It’s private.”
A brass key hung from Beatrice’s wrist on a narrow chain.
Before Marina could ask anything else, her phone buzzed.
A picture from her neighbor showed her daughter, Sofia, wearing pajamas and holding a spelling test.
One hundred percent.
Marina smiled before she could stop herself.
“Personal calls after working hours,” Beatrice said.
“It’s my daughter.”
“That doesn’t change the rule.”
Marina put the phone away.
At bedtime, she found Miguel sitting on the floor outside the nursery.
“Can’t sleep?”
He shook his head.
“Want company?”
Another shake.
She sat a few feet away anyway.
After a long silence, he whispered, “Do you hate dark rooms?”
Marina’s smile faded.
“Sometimes.”
May you like
Miguel looked toward the west hallway.
Then he got up and ran.
