Her head snapped sideways. For one full second, she didn’t move at all — hand frozen halfway to her cheek, eyes wide with a shock that didn’t belong to a woman who was used to being touched like that.

Nobody had ever hit her back.

He was already on his knees beside the maid, one arm wrapping around her shaking shoulders, water soaking straight through his sleeve. He didn’t care. His voice came out low, and it shook — not from fear, from something closer to fury holding itself together by a thread.

«You’re okay. I’ve got you. You’re okay.»

The maid pressed her face into his arm and sobbed, the kind of sobbing that comes from somewhere old, somewhere that’s been holding this in for a long time.

He looked up.

The blonde woman was still standing there, hand pressed to her reddening cheek, mouth slightly open like she hadn’t decided yet whether to scream or cry.

He rose to his feet, slow, and his eyes found hers.

«You monster. Get out of my—»

The words never finished.

Because that’s when she said the one sentence that made his blood run cold — the one that changed whose house this really was.