“Get away from my son!” Adrian barked, striding forward. “You’re paid to clean floors, not endanger him! Do you understand how delicate his spine is? How much I spend on specialists telling me he must not exert himself?”
“The specialists get paid to keep him still like furniture,” Lily shot back. “I don’t charge anything to make him feel alive.”
The boldness stunned him.
“You’re fired,” he said coldly. “Pack your things. Ten minutes. If you’re still here, I’ll call the police.”
Then it happened.
“N… no!”
The sound came from Mateo.
Adrian turned slowly. Mateo never spoke. His silence had been total. Yet now he was straining, face flushed, reaching—not toward his father, but toward Lily.
“Don’t… go,” he forced out. “She… dances.”
From the doorway appeared Margaret, the head housekeeper. Fifteen years in the house, loyalty as cold as the marble floors. She despised Lily’s energy, the way Mateo seemed to awaken around her.
“Mr. Adrian,” Margaret said smoothly, “the boy is hysterical. He’s near collapse. This is dangerous.”
Logic told Adrian she was right. But his son’s trembling “No” echoed louder.
“You have twenty-four hours,” Adrian told Lily. “Tomorrow the best neurologist in the city will examine him. If there’s any harm, you’ll never work in this country again.”
Lily nodded. “Deal.”
A silent war followed. Margaret watched from shadows while Lily used every second with Mateo. No machines—just wooden spoons for rhythm. “Tap, tap, boom.” Kneading pizza dough to strengthen his hands. Games. Laughter.
Mateo responded.
The neurologist arrived the next day—skeptical, clinical. After tests and lights, he declared there were no real improvements. “Involuntary spasms,” he said flatly.
Hope dimmed in Adrian’s chest. Margaret smirked.
But Lily crouched in front of Mateo and whispered, “Forget the man in white. It’s just us. Tap, tap, boom.”
She tapped the floor softly.
Mateo lifted his arm.
Not a spasm. Intention.
He raised it high and cried out in triumph.
Adrian wept openly. He dismissed the doctor and asked Lily to stay.
It might have ended there—if not for Margaret.
If medicine couldn’t remove Lily, crime would.
That afternoon, while Lily helped Mateo push one leg forward in the greenhouse, Margaret entered Adrian’s office. With a hidden master key, she unlocked the display case and removed the solid gold Rolex President—an heirloom worth a fortune. She slipped it into Lily’s worn backpack.