Chapter 1: The Debt and the Sale (Part 1)
Emma Craven discovered that her life was over at exactly 2:37 p.m. on a rainy Tuesday, while trying to untie an impossible knot in her shoelace. The kitchen phone rang three times before she finally decided to answer it, still kneeling on the cold floor with her hair tied up in a messy bun.
“Hello?”
The voice on the other end belonged to Mr. Vasconcelos, the family lawyer. The man with the perpetually crooked tie and the smile of someone who delivered bad news with the delicacy of an elephant in a china shop.
“Emma, my dear… I need you to come here right away. It’s about the… situation.”
She already knew that tone. It was the same tone they had used when they announced her father’s death, when her mother lost her job, and when her younger brother decided to “start a business” selling orange juice in the middle of a frost.
Emma sighed, tied her shoelace any way she could, and left the house without bothering to change her tomato-sauce-stained T-shirt.
Vasconcelos’s office was downtown, in an old building that smelled of musty paper and burnt coffee. When she walked in, the lawyer was already standing, his sweaty hands resting on the brown briefcase he always carried as though it contained state secrets.
“Please, have a seat.”
Emma sat down. The sofa creaked in protest.
“Let’s get straight to the point, Mr. Vasconcelos. How much do we owe this time?”
He cleared his throat. Opened the briefcase. Took out a thick, stapled document covered in red stamps that seemed to scream, You’re screwed.
“Your mother… well, your mother signed a debt consolidation agreement eight months ago. The total amount, including interest and penalties, has reached a… let’s say… critical point.”
“Critical how?”
“Critical enough that the main creditor has demanded an… alternative form of payment.”
Emma felt her stomach twist.
“Alternative.”
“Yes. A personal service contract. For a fixed term. Five years.”
She blinked.
“Five years… doing what?”
Vasconcelos turned his gaze toward the window, as though the answer might be written in the gray clouds.
“Full domestic service. At a private estate outside the city. Mr. Nicco Ross.”
The name meant nothing to her. But the way the lawyer pronounced it—almost in a whisper, with a respect bordering on fear—made Emma sit up straighter.
“And what if I refuse?”
“Your mother loses the house. Your brother loses his chance at a scholarship. And you… well, the debt remains. With interest that, by now, has interest of its own.”
Emma fell silent. The wall clock read 3:12 p.m. Outside, the rain battered the windows as though it wanted to come inside and sign the contract, too.
She thought of her mother, who had been sleeping on the sofa for months to save the guest room—which no longer existed because they had sold the bed. She thought of her seventeen-year-old brother, who still believed life would get better “next month.” She thought of herself, twenty-four years old, with a literature degree that couldn’t even pay for breakfast and a bank account that seemed to sneer at her every time she tried to make a transfer.
“Where is this estate?”
“Three hours away by car. An old mansion. Isolated. Mr. Ross… prefers his privacy.”
“And does he know I can’t even iron a shirt without leaving a scorch mark?”
Vasconcelos almost smiled.
“The contract doesn’t require excellence. It requires your presence and compliance with the house rules.”
Emma held out her hand.
“Give me the pen.”
He hesitated.
“Don’t you want to read it first?”
“If I read it, I’ll cry. And I hate crying in front of lawyers. I’ll sign now, serve my five years, and then pretend this never happened.”
The pen was heavy, made of metal, and left a blue stain on her index finger. When the last page was signed, Vasconcelos put the document away as though he had just sealed a pact with the devil.
“The car will pick you up tomorrow at eight in the morning. You may bring one suitcase. Just one.”
Emma stood up.
“Wonderful. That way, I won’t have the illusion that I’m going on vacation.”
She left the office with her back straight and her heart pounding so hard she was certain the lawyer could still hear it from the other side of the door.