My decision to take a job in a wealthy house on the outskirts wasn’t driven by desperation or financial need. I had savings, a modest but cozy apartment in the city, and even a small car I’d bought a few years ago. No, my escape was of a different kind. After everything that happened with Dmitry and Olga—after my carefully built world came crashing down—I needed, desperately, to disappear. To hide in a place where neither prying eyes nor my own torturing memories could find me. I needed peace, silence, and walls that would not remind me of what had happened. The city—where even the smell of coffee from my favorite café had come to reek of bitterness and disappointment—had become unbearable.
I was looking for a job where no one would interrogate me about my past, where the ability to keep quiet, stay inconspicuous, and perform one’s duties with cold, detached precision was valued. The position of caretaker in the Volkov residence seemed like the perfect solution. A huge mansion in neo-Gothic style, as if it had stepped off the pages of a grim novel, stood at the very edge of nowhere, where a dense coniferous forest pressed up against an endless field, and a serpentine asphalt road led only there and nowhere else. Tall pointed windows, sharp little turrets, wrought-iron gates with remote control—everything breathed secrecy, wealth, and a detachment from the fuss of the outside world.
I was hired surprisingly quickly and without unnecessary questions. The interview lasted about ten minutes. The staffing agent, a dry woman in a strict suit, explained the gist: round-the-clock care was needed for Mr. Volkov—he was completely paralyzed, almost deprived of speech, but required constant attention. The salary offered was triple the standard. Lodging—in a small room adjoining his chambers. The main, non-negotiable condition—complete isolation. No personal visits, no phone calls without special permission. I nodded silently as I signed the contract. These terms suited me perfectly.
The first day passed in sepulchral silence, broken only by the ticking of the hallway pendulum clocks and the faint rustle of my steps on the parquet. Mr. Volkov lay in his massive bed with its high wooden headboard, covered by an expensive silk quilt with an intricate Eastern pattern. His face was pale, almost translucent, like old parchment, and his eyes—dark, bottomless—were like deep wells you were afraid to peer into. He didn’t utter a word, only occasionally nodded or slightly turned his head in response to my questions. I fed him with a small silver spoon, changed his linens, gave him massages so his muscles wouldn’t completely atrophy. He offered not the slightest resistance, but neither did he show gratitude. He simply watched. And in that steady, studying gaze was something inexplicable, inhuman. Not malice, not coldness, but a kind of all-penetrating knowing, as if he could see straight through everything I was so desperately trying to hide even from myself—all my secrets and pain.
At night I finally lay down in my room—small, but very cozy, with a high ceiling and a window overlooking an old, slightly neglected garden. The exhaustion of the move and the new impressions overwhelmed me, and I fell almost instantly into a heavy, dreamless sleep. But deep in the night, at the darkest hour, I was awakened by a strange sound unlike anything I’d heard before. It wasn’t the usual creak of floorboards in an old house, nor a mouse scratching behind the baseboard, nor the wind moaning in the pipes. It was more like a muffled, drawn-out sigh—as if someone had been underwater for a very long time and had finally broken the surface, trying to draw life-giving air into their lungs.
I snapped my eyes open. My heart was pounding somewhere in my throat, thudding dully in my temples. Slowly, afraid to make a wrong move, I turned my head toward the window.
And then I went numb with terror and disbelief.
There, beyond the glass, in the impenetrable darkness, stood him.
Mr. Volkov himself.
The very same paralyzed billionaire who, according to the agent, hadn’t gotten out of bed for ten long years.
He stood motionless, straight and tall, wrapped in a long robe the color of a raven’s wing, his arms hanging limp at his sides, his face hidden in shadow. There was neither moon nor stars outside, only the velvet, thick blackness of night. He was staring into that darkness, as if waiting for someone… or listening for something beyond the reach of my hearing.
I couldn’t move, couldn’t make a sound. My breath caught, and my thoughts fluttered in panic like frightened birds in a cramped cage: Is this a dream? A hallucination from exhaustion? But he… he’d been lying this whole time?
At that moment he slowly—very slowly—turned his head. His dark, all-seeing eyes found mine in the half-light of the room.
“Only, I beg you, don’t scream,” he said quietly, and his voice was surprisingly gentle and deep. “This is my great secret.”
His voice was nothing like what I had imagined. There was no rasp, no weakness of a sick man. It was velvety, low, with a slight, almost musical huskiness, as if its owner had smoked many expensive cigars or talked straight through till dawn. And there wasn’t a trace of illness in it. Not a single drop.
“You… you can walk?” I breathed, unable to tear my gaze away from him.
He didn’t answer at once. He took a few soundless steps forward and stopped at the very head of my bed. His tall figure cast a long shadow over me.
“Sit up,” he said softly, but as a command. “We need to talk calmly.”
I obediently pushed myself up, instinctively pulling the thin cover over me like a shield. My hands were treacherously trembling. One thought beat in my head: He deceived everyone. For a whole decade. Every single person.
“You’re thinking I’m insane, aren’t you?” he asked, as if reading those thoughts on my face.
“I’m thinking… that all this time you’ve been lying,” I answered, struggling to keep my voice even and steady.
He smiled faintly. There was not a hint of malice or arrogance in that smile. If anything, it carried a bottomless weariness long accumulated over the years.
“‘Lie’ is too loud and simple a word for what I did. I merely… chose a different reality for myself. One in which I could feel completely safe.”
“Safe?” I didn’t understand. “But you’re a man of great means. You have an entire army of guards here, the best alarm systems, guard dogs…”
“And you had a husband,” he interrupted gently but firmly. “And yet he managed to betray you in the cruelest way.”
I flinched as if shocked by an electric current. How could he know about Dmitry? I hadn’t told anyone.
“Don’t look at me with such fear and surprise,” he went on. “I vet absolutely everyone who crosses the threshold of this house. But most carefully—those who come here not merely for work but for refuge. You didn’t come for money. You came to hide. Which means you, better than anyone, understand the true price of lies… and the price one sometimes must pay for the truth.”
I kept silent, realizing he was right in every letter.
“Ten years ago,” he began his measured story, “I lost my only son. His name was Artyom. He was just twenty-three. He died in a car crash. But it wasn’t an accident. He was killed. Coldly and deliberately.”
I felt ice spreading inside me as I listened.
“Who? Who did it?”
“People who wanted, by any means, to seize control of my company. They naively believed that by destroying my heir—my boy—they would break me. Make me surrender. Sell everything for a song. But they were cruelly mistaken. I didn’t break. I… simply vanished. Officially, I became a helpless invalid. In reality, I began my own quiet hunt.”
“Hunt?” I echoed, barely grasping it.
“I created for them the perfect illusion of my feebleness. Everyone believed I was confined to this bed, that I was slowly, day by day, fading. And meanwhile, I watched. I listened closely. And I waited patiently. My so-called ‘attending physicians,’ ‘caregivers,’ even a few ‘lawyers’—half of them were working for those who took my son from me. I knew it from the beginning. But I didn’t hurry. Let them think I’m weak and defenseless. Let them drop their guard and relax.”
He paused for a moment, his gaze drifting again into the darkness beyond the window, as if searching there for answers to his questions.
“Why did you decide to get up now? Why reveal yourself to me?” I asked after a pause.
“Because you came,” he turned back to me, his look piercing. “And you’re not like the others. You don’t look at me with pity, or sycophancy, or greed. You look… with pain. And pain, as we know, has a remarkable property—it makes a person truly honest. First and foremost—with themselves.”
I couldn’t stand that gaze and lowered my eyes.
“What do you want from me? What are you expecting?”
“I’m asking for your help. But not as a caretaker. As an ally. As someone who can understand.”
“But I’m not a spy or a detective,” I tried to object.
“You’re a mother,” he said so simply my heart clenched. “And like any mother, you can protect to the last breath what you love more than life. For my purpose, that’s more than enough.”
I remembered my little son, whom I had left for a while with my mother in a distant quiet village. Yes, I was a mother. And yes, I truly knew how to protect my child.
“What exactly do you need?” I asked, firmer now.
“Tomorrow my younger brother will come. His name is Yuri. He’s one of the few who know the whole truth. He isn’t an enemy. He’s… my guardian. He’ll bring very important documents. And something else. I need you to watch carefully everything that happens in the house. The staff. Especially the maid, Anna. She’s been here three years. Far too long for someone who appeared in my house ‘just because.’”
“You suspect she’s working for them?”
“I’m more than certain she’s their eyes and ears here.”
I drew a deep breath and nodded.
“All right. I’ll help you. But only on one condition.”
“Name it.”
“When this is over… you’ll give me an impeccable reference. And you’ll let me simply leave. No extra questions, no digging into circumstances.”
He looked at me long and hard, as if weighing my demand. At last he nodded slowly.
“Agreed.”
The next day everything in the house went on as usual. I diligently performed the duties of caretaker to the “paralyzed” Mr. Volkov: fed him puréed soup, fluffed his pillows, settled him down—pretending he couldn’t move a finger without my help. He played his role with astonishing, Oscar-worthy mastery—his eyes half-closed, his breathing shallow and even, any movement only at my prompting. But with nightfall, when the whole house sank into sleep, he would rise soundlessly from his bed. Like a shadow, he glided along the dark corridors. Sometimes he vanished into the library, sometimes he went down to the basement for long stretches. I didn’t ask unnecessary questions. I simply did what he had asked of me.
Yuri Volkov arrived the next day just after noon. He was a tall, trim man with thick gray hair and a face very like his brother’s, but softer, less gaunt. He brought with him a heavy, worn leather briefcase and an elegant cardboard box with the neck of an aged, expensive cognac peeking out.
“How is he?” he asked me at once, barely stepping into the vast hall.
“He sleeps almost all the time,” I answered, sticking to the agreed-upon story. “He ate almost nothing today.”
Yuri merely nodded, as if that was exactly what he expected to hear.
He spent nearly two hours with his brother in a room locked from the inside. I stood watch by the door, trying not to miss a word. They spoke very quietly, almost in whispers, but I still caught one clear phrase: “She already knows everything.” And a little later, near the end of the conversation: “Anna called them today. Twice.”
When Yuri left, Mr. Volkov beckoned me over.
“Well, did you manage to learn anything?” he asked softly.
“Yes,” I answered just as softly. “They’ll come tomorrow in the dead of night. Anna called and reported that the new caretaker—me—will be sleeping soundly and won’t interfere.”
“Thank you for helping to find that out,” he said, and a spark of gratitude flickered in his eyes.
“What exactly are they trying to find?” I asked.
“The archive. It’s hidden in a secret room in the basement. Everything is there: audio recordings, documents, names, irrefutable proof of their guilt. If they get that archive—I’m dead. And you, believe me, won’t be left alive either. You’ve become a dangerous witness.”
“What should we do?” I whispered, feeling a chill creep down my spine.
“You’ll stay here, in your room. You’ll pretend to be fast asleep. And I… I’ll be here to receive them properly.”
“They’ll go mad with fear!” I exclaimed. “A paralyzed man suddenly rises and starts talking to them?”
“That’s exactly what I’m after,” he allowed himself the faintest smile. “Panic and blind, animal fear are the best and surest weapons against people like that.”
“But you can’t handle them alone! They’ll be armed!”
“The chief advantage is I know the exact time they’ll come. That changes everything.”
The night turned out stifling and moonless. I lay in my bed without closing my eyes, listening to every rustle in the old house. Precisely at three in the morning, as expected, there came a light, almost ghostly tap on the windowpane from the garden side. Then another, a shade more insistent. I rose without a sound, crept to the door, and opened it a sliver. The long dark corridor was filled with a ringing, complete silence. But I felt with every fiber: there were strangers in the house already.
Careful, on tiptoe, I went down the main staircase. In the huge living room only a single night-lamp was lit, throwing fanciful shadows across the walls. And there, in the very center of the room, stood him. Mr. Volkov. But this time not in a hospital robe, but in a perfectly tailored black suit with a tie. He looked… utterly different. Young, strong, brimming with contained energy. It seemed the years of feigned illness had erased not his body, but only the mask under which he had hidden his true nature.
Beyond the high arched windows quick shadows flickered. Two men. One—tall and lanky, with a bright tattoo on his neck visible even in the dim light. The other—stocky, broad-shouldered, a heavy pistol in his hand.
They entered the house through the back door that led from the garden into the pantry. They moved soundlessly, like true professionals of their dark trade.
“Where’s that damn archive?” the tall one hissed, approaching Volkov’s big bed.
But the bed was empty. The quilt neatly spread.
He turned, bewildered—and his face contorted with pure, unmasked shock.
Volkov was standing by the fireplace, calmly holding a crystal glass of dark amber whiskey.
“Good night, gentlemen,” he intoned in his velvety, authoritative voice. “It’s been a long time.”
The intruders’ faces went slack, their eyes bulging in surprise. The stocky man instinctively raised his pistol, but his hand was visibly trembling.
“Th… that’s impossible!” he stammered.
“There’s nothing impossible in this world,” Volkov parried. “Especially when it comes to just revenge.”
At that very moment the room blazed with light. From all sides—behind the curtains, from the dark corner of the study—men in black uniforms appeared. It was security, which I had scarcely noticed in the house before. And in the doorway to the dining room stood Anna. Her face was white as chalk, and steel handcuffs gleamed on her wrists.
“You… you knew everything,” she whispered, staring at Volkov in mute horror.
“I knew everything from the very start,” he confirmed coldly. “But I needed them to come here themselves. To confirm their guilt by their actions, by their words, and to name their patrons. Now I have all the evidence I need.”
One of the hitmen—the tall one—tried to jerk up his weapon and shoot. But one of the guards was quicker—he delivered a lightning-fast, precise blow, and the man collapsed onto the parquet with a dull groan. The entire operation to detain them took no more than a minute.
By morning the usual hush returned to the house. Only a faint, bitter tang of gunpowder and strained nerves still lingered in the air.
Mr. Volkov sat in a deep leather armchair in the library, slowly drinking black coffee from a small cup.
“You’re free,” he said without looking at me. “A car is already waiting at the gate. Your bank account has just been credited with your annual salary multiplied by three. And, as we agreed, a letter of recommendation from me personally.”
“Thank you,” I said simply, feeling a great weight lift from my shoulders.
“Wait a moment.” He opened a drawer of the old writing desk and took out a plain white envelope. “This is for you. Don’t open it now. Do it later, when you’re ready.”
I took the envelope. Inside lay a folded sheet of heavy paper. On it were just a few words: “Remember, you’re no longer alone. And if truly hard times come in your life, I will help you, as you helped me. One debt deserves another.”
I stepped out of the vast house into the fresh morning air. The sun was rising over the horizon, flooding the treetops and rooftops with light. A light breeze rustled the last autumn leaves. I got into my old but trusty car and drove off. Away from that place. To my mother, in a distant quiet village. To my son, to my future.
And echoing in my head were Mr. Volkov’s words: “Pain makes a person honest.”
But sometimes, as I now understood, that same pain can give rise to something more. It can make a person truly dangerous to those who harmed them.
It can temper the spirit and make it incredibly strong.
And sometimes, in rare, truly fateful moments, it can grant them the long-awaited, hard-won freedom