Trying not to make a sound, Elisaveta Andreevna Malinkina, 27, cautiously walked down the hallway toward the room of Alissa, the owner’s fourteen-year-old daughter. She had to check if the teenager was finally asleep so she could go and rest herself.
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Lisa had been working in the billionaire Voropaev’s house for two weeks now, replacing her older sister Antonina, who had suddenly fallen ill during her vacation. She had to take over her duties on the fly. This job was vital to the family: the salary far exceeded anything anyone could hope for in their region. Antonina had two children: Marina, fourteen, and little Vania, six.
The job wasn’t complicated—she just had to maintain order in the house and, as much as possible, avoid crossing paths with the owners. But there was one “but”: on the days when Alexei Voropaev and his fiancée Angelika were away, Elisaveta had to spend the night at the mansion.
Alexei Anatolyevich had a daughter, Alissa, and on those evenings, the young girl was alone in this immense mansion. The staff house was located at the other end of the estate.
Already on the stairs, Lisa heard crying. She checked her watch—it was 3:00 a.m.
“What’s that again? She’s crying again… This is starting to get strange,” she murmured to herself.
Resolutely, the young woman knocked on the door. She wanted to understand what was going on. She was convinced something serious had happened. Because if this teenager’s life was so golden, why would she cry every night?
Her sister had strictly warned her: “Never show yourself to the owners.” But Malinkina decided to go in anyway. Rather than stand by and listen, she opened it and stepped into the bedroom.
“What are you doing here?! Who let you in? Get out of here right now! I’ll call security!” Alissa yelled, throwing a cushion at the maid.
Lisa caught it in mid-air and threw it back at her, hitting the master’s daughter squarely in the head.
“How dare you?! I’ll tell my father, you’ll be fired!” the young girl fumed.
“He doesn’t care,” Lisa replied with a hint of sarcasm. “It’s unbearable living in your house. Even at night, it’s impossible to have peace. There’s always someone crying. Do you know who it is? Oh, yes, it’s you.” Maybe Dad didn’t get his lucky star for you, or you broke a gel nail?
Alissa burst into tears:
“You don’t understand anything! If you only knew what I’m going through!”
“I understand, it’s hell,” Lisa agreed. “At fourteen, if I’d been driven to school in a car with a driver, I probably would have cried too.”
“Why?” the girl asked in surprise.
“After school, we went swimming, we picked mushrooms in the fall, we sometimes went for coffee ice cream. And you? No one comes to your house, you have no one to talk to.”
Malinkina went to the door, but Alissa held her back:
“How do you make friends? I don’t have any.”
“None?” the woman asked in surprise.
“Not a single one. Before, I had my mother, then my parents divorced. I was sent to study abroad, I got sick there, and my father brought me back.”
“Why do you live with your father and not your mother?” asked Lisa, feeling a familiar pang.
“My mother doesn’t want to see me anymore. She’s started a new life, she has a new husband, grandchildren.”
“Did she tell you that?”
“No. I haven’t seen her in a long time. That’s what my father tells me,” sighed Alissa.
“What an idiot your father is!” blurted Elisaveta, not holding back. “Only a selfish person would say that to his child.”
“Were you talking about me?” called a voice from the doorway.
The two of them froze. A man in his thirties entered the room.
“Dad, are you home already?” the girl stammered, hiding under the covers.
“Stop calling Angelika a doggy,” Voropaev said sharply, then turned to Lisa. “Who are you and what are you doing in my daughter’s room?”
“I’m the cleaning lady. I just wanted to check if she was asleep,” Lisa replied, embarrassed.
“You’ve been warned: we don’t enter, we only listen at the door. If necessary, we wake Tamara Petrovna, but we don’t barge in here.”
“Yes, I was warned,” she lowered her eyes, not wanting to denounce Alissa.
“You’re fired,” Alexei declared coldly, approaching his daughter’s bed.
Lisa stood there, bewildered, not knowing where to turn. She felt humiliated and worried about how to explain all this to Antonina.
Voropaev turned around:
“Are you still here? Go away. You’re fired.”
“Dad, no, it’s not his fault,” Alissa begged. “I’m the one who asked him to come. I had a nightmare.”
“Okay, this time I’ll forgive it. But if I see you near my daughter again, you’ll have no more excuses.”
Lisa quickly returned to her room. How stupid! She had almost compromised her sister. From now on, she would stay away from Alissa.
As she fell asleep, Lisa thought of her older sister—Antonina Grineva. To her, she had always been the dearest person. Eight years separated them.
She remembered when their father was still alive, a large, close-knit family, their mother taking care of them. Then her father had fallen ill. He had been hospitalized in the city and never returned.
Her mother had cried for a long time, then given in to alcohol. Lisa was thirteen at the time. She didn’t want to live with her mother and her new husband, Yuri Zhukhov, and kept running away from her father. She was taken back by force, but she still escaped.
Once, Lisa had traveled three hundred kilometers by train. The police found her and brought her back. That’s when child protection services first intervened.
Antonina, who had just given birth to her first daughter, Marina, decided to take her sister with her:
“Sasha, shall we take Lisa? Otherwise, she’ll get lost,” she said to her husband.
“Okay. But will you be able to manage the little girl and a teenager? Besides, I’m often on missions,” replied Alexander, a helicopter pilot by trade.
He loved the sky, but for Tonia, he agreed to stay home more, without ever completely giving up flying. This is how Antonina lived, in constant anxiety when her husband was away on active duty. But she had saved her sister from the difficult conditions at their mother’s house. Natalia Egorovna, their mother, had no objection—she wanted her freedom; Lisa was too much of a problem.
The mother, entrusting the youngest to the eldest, had breathed a sigh of relief and immersed herself in her carefree life. Lisa was lucky—she found warmth, attention, and support in Antonina’s home.
Little by little, the young girl recovered: she calmed down, made progress in school, and regained her zest for life. After school, she came home not only to do her homework, but also to help her sister.
Lisa no longer went to see her mother, even though she lived a few streets away. The wound was too deep. But in the evenings, she often cried, thinking of her father, the dearest person she had lost.
She graduated from high school with a silver medal and easily entered university. After studying law, she became a lawyer and, within three years, was admitted to the bar.
The young Malinkina quickly gained a reputation as a promising and competent legal expert. Colleagues and teachers predicted a great future for her. A decisive role in her career was played by Naum Yakovlevich Goldman—one of the best lawyers in the region, who became not only a mentor to Lisa, but also a close friend.
Naum Yakovlevich had a daughter, but they had severed ties—the Goldman family had emigrated to Canada after the divorce. Remaining in Russia, he considered Lisa his daughter. For many, he was a legend—a true legal genius.
Lisa knew this well and felt honored to learn from such a master. The only sorrow in his life was loneliness. And Malinkina had become his support. What particularly touched Lisa was that she physically resembled his daughter, which earned Lisa the affectionate nickname “my child.”
They had met when Lisa was fortunate enough to become his intern. Even after he began his independent career, she maintained a relationship of trust with him, continuing to help him, almost like family.
“I’ll never abandon you, Naum Yakovlevich. Don’t count on it!” Lisa said, taking the old man to her dacha. “My child, I could have gone alone. Why did you rush here this morning?”
“Get dressed and don’t argue. I’ll wait for you in the car. Where are your things?”
“I’ll carry my bags myself. I’m a man, after all. Or do I have to swallow them? Wait, I’ll be back. You’ll have plenty of time to scold me afterward,” he grumbled, hiding a smile.
These conversations were common between them—two people who had become closer than real parents. Naum Yakovlevich had even gone so far as to change his will, leaving half of his estate to Lisa. She ignored him and wasn’t interested in money.
For Elisaveta, the most precious thing was the presence of this man by her side. With Goldman, she found peace and security—a feeling she had only known as a child, during her father’s time.
The old lawyer, for his part, could no longer imagine his life without Lisa. He dreaded the day she would leave—get married, start a family. He had survived the separation from his own daughter, but he wouldn’t get over it a second time. But he never spoke about it.
He made plans for Lisa: for her to get married, have children, become the best lawyer in the country. He himself came second to all that.
They only parted ways once a year—during the holidays, when Lisa went to stay with her sister. Antonina had done so much for her, and Lisa wanted to return the favor—to help, to be there, to give back at least a little of what she had received.
Although Lisa could now afford all the trips she wanted, she always chose her sister’s house. It was her way of saying thank you and spending time with her loved ones.
She had often suggested to Tonia that they move to the city, rent a large apartment, work, and raise the children together. But Antonina refused. She was waiting for her husband—Alexander Grishin, a helicopter pilot who disappeared in a crash five years ago during a mission. His body was never found, and he was officially declared dead.
But Tonia didn’t believe it:
“I’m not leaving here, Lisa. What if Sasha comes back? How would he find us in town?”
“We’ll leave a note with the address,” Lisa joked, but her heart was heavy.
She admired her sister’s strength and loyalty, but deep down, she felt sorry for her—the years pass, life moves on, but Tonia is still waiting…
Semen Krachkov had long proposed to her, but she had refused:
“How can I remarry if my husband is alive? We’ve never seen his body—he’ll come back.”
This is how the Grishin family lived in the village. When Marina, the daughter, finished high school and went to study in the city, Lisa would take care of her niece. In the meantime, she came for holidays, weekends, and always spent her vacations with them.
It was during one of these stays that an emergency intervention was necessary. For three days, Antonina had been suffering, but she couldn’t afford to stop working. She was a housekeeper for the billionaire Voropaev.
The rich like to live in the countryside—they buy land, build houses. The service staff is hired locally. The village is nearby, and you can cycle to work in ten minutes.
So Lisa had easily negotiated with the other employees—they agreed to cover the substitution, promising not to say anything. The owners wouldn’t notice: most of the staff were unknown to them; anonymity was the golden rule.
Before, the rules hadn’t been so strict, but since Angelika, Voropaev’s fiancée, had moved in, everything had changed. The future wife only tolerated people with at least a million in their pockets. She despised the staff and didn’t want to see them.
She demanded that the housework be done outside of family hours, and that at the slightest appearance of a master, everyone disappear immediately.
“So we have to move like shadows?” Lisa mocked upon learning of this.
“Yes, that’s pretty much it,” replied the housekeeper Tamara Petrovna, an employee of hers for years. “That’s Angelika. She’s not married yet, but she already rules the roost.”
“For now, she’s invited, so… she should ask, not order.”
“Of course, but no one wants to oppose her. Voropaev proposed to her, gave her a diamond ring, and the wedding is approaching.”
“Good for me,” Lisa smiled. “No one knows me, so no one will know I’m replacing my sister.”
“Honestly, Lisa, you should really hide if you ever see Angelika,” grimaced Tamara Petrovna.
“Why?” frowned Lisa.
“You’re too young and pretty. She doesn’t tolerate those. Even your sister, Antonina, is too young—she’s the same age as Voropaev. As for you… you’re downright too young.”
“Is she really that jealous?”
“Oh yes! She even fired Masha Grenkina, who isn’t a beauty. But Angelika knows all the feminine tricks. They say she used to work in escorts. Now she wants to “settle down”—age is catching up with her, she’s approaching forty,” whispered the housekeeper.
It was clear the woman was itching to chat. Lisa had already noticed that the staff liked to talk about the owners, but that gossip never left the estate. Revealing a secret meant risking mass dismissal. Everyone followed the rules to the letter. The job was too good to lose.
“Why does Alexei Anatolyevich want to marry a woman like that?” asked Lisa.
“She’s as cunning as a fox. After years as an escort, she’s acquired the manners of high society: she speaks English, follows the news, knows politics, fashion, and show business. She has allure. Do you understand?”
“No,” admitted Lisa.
“Oh dear, Lisa! Alexei has never loved anyone. I’ve seen some, but he only ever had eyes for Vera, his first wife. He truly loved her. He didn’t care about the others. Angelika is for image. He’ll buy her jewelry, take her out in society. A man like Voropaev must have a wife.”
A married man inspires more trust in business partners. A single man isn’t serious. That’s why he wants to get married.
“So he’s buying it?” Lisa asked thoughtfully.
