Instead, they were hiding behind bushes, watching each other like soldiers preparing for battle.
I rubbed my face.
“What am I supposed to do?”
Augusto hesitated.
“There is another option.”
“What?”
“We hire a housekeeper.”
I laughed bitterly.
“A housekeeper won’t fix this.”
“No,” he said quietly. “But perhaps she can keep the house functioning until we find something else.”
I stared at the empty hallway beyond my office.
Then I heard something crash.
A few seconds later, Bianca screamed with laughter.
I closed my eyes.
“Call whoever will come.”
I had no idea that those words would change all of our lives.
PAGE 2
Several kilometers away, a young woman named Luía Oliveira was waking up at 5:30 in the morning.
She was twenty-five years old.
She lived with her parents in a modest neighborhood where every room had a purpose and every coin was carefully counted.
Her father, Joaquim, had worked as a bricklayer for most of his life.
