Chapter One: The Maid's Daughter
Rain poured like tears from the heavens over the Montemayor estate, a grand house nestled in the hills outside Manila—white-walled, wrought with old Spanish charm, and shrouded in the kind of silence only the rich could afford.
Inside, the silence was broken by a single voice.
"She's gone," a maid whispered, clutching her rosary with trembling hands. "Luz is gone."
Mira Santos stood quietly beside her mother's bed, staring at the still, pale body beneath the thin white sheet. Her mother's hand was cold in hers, and the warmth of life had long fled. Mira didn't cry. Not because she didn't want to. But because her tears had dried up hours ago, waiting in vain for her mother to wake.
She was only six.
Outside the door, murmurs had already begun—about what would happen to her, now that her mother, a housemaid, had no breath left to offer the household.
"She can't stay," said Tiya Marta, the head maid, sternly. "She's not on the payroll. Don Ricardo won't allow it."
Don Ricardo Montemayor. The man who ruled the estate like a king—rich from real estate, feared by competitors, and silent in his judgments. His decisions were final. No explanations. No sympathy.
"She's a child!" protested another younger maid.
"She's a mouth to feed," came the cold reply. "And not his responsibility."
Later that afternoon, Mira stood, tiny and barefoot, near the grand marble staircase that spiraled upward toward the elegant heart of the Montemayor home. Her suitcase, a battered old thing, sat beside her.
She was waiting—for what, she didn't know. Maybe for someone to come claim her. Maybe for her mother to return. Neither happened.
Instead, Don Ricardo Montemayor appeared, stepping into the hall like thunder in human form. Tall, broad-shouldered, in a white linen shirt and slacks that cost more than most salaries, he paused, eyes narrowing when they landed on the child.
"That her?" he asked coldly. "The maid's daughter?"
Mira looked up. Her dark eyes met his. She didn't flinch.
Before he could speak again, a voice cut through the tension like a silver blade.
"Ricardo," said Dona Isabella, gliding down the staircase in a silk house robe, her hair perfectly pinned, her presence soft but powerful. "Please."
He glanced at his wife. "We don't run an orphanage."
"She has nowhere to go," Isabella said. "Luz served this family loyally. Let the girl stay—for now."
"She's useless," he muttered. "We don't need dead weight."
"She can help," Isabella replied, her eyes never leaving the girl. "Can't you, anak?"
Mira blinked. Anak. Daughter. It had been days since anyone said a kind word to her.
"I—I can clean," Mira said, her voice steady. "I know how to wash clothes. And sweep. I can sew holes in shoes and socks… and I can cook egg and rice."
Don Ricardo raised an eyebrow.
"You're six."
"Yes, po."
Dona Isabella stepped closer and knelt down to Mira's level.
"Who taught you all that?"
"My mama," she said proudly.
A long pause followed. Then, to Mira's surprise, Don Ricardo turned and walked away, his voice trailing behind him.
"She stays. If she works. If not—out."
Tiya Marta hissed through her teeth. Dona Isabella exhaled with relief.
But Mira just stood there, confused.
It wasn't kindness that let her stay.
It was survival.
That night, Mira curled up in the tiny storage room behind the kitchen, a small mattress barely big enough for her thin frame. But she had a roof. And a chance.
She clutched her mother's necklace—a faded locket with a photo of the two of them—and whispered, "I'll work hard, Mama. I'll be strong."
What she didn't know was that up in the master bedroom, Isabella Montemayor sat at her vanity, staring at that same necklace hanging in her thoughts.
It had once saved her life.
But that was a secret the house had buried for years.
End of Chapter One