Chapter 3 - THE LOCKBOX
The words hung in the air like a death sentence.
Under your son’s bed.
I looked at Dominic. The calm, composed businessman was gone. In his place stood a father who had just realized the enemy had been sleeping under his roof.
“Lock the doors,” Dominic said to the security guards. “Nobody leaves the estate. Not the guests. Not her.”
He pointed a single finger at Vanessa.
Vanessa backed against the doorframe, her face pale. “Dominic, please, you don’t understand—”
“Marcus!” Dominic barked.
The head of security, a tall, broad-shouldered man with a scar over his left eye, stepped out of the shadows of the hallway.
“Take Vanessa to the study. Do not let her speak to anyone,” Dominic ordered.
Marcus nodded, grabbing Vanessa firmly by the arm. She didn’t fight. She looked completely defeated, her eyes darting between Leo, the silver watch, and the stairs.
Dominic turned to me.
“Take care of your brother. Get him to the staff quarters. Have the private doctor look at him.”
“I need to come with you,” I blurted out.
It was a bold, stupid thing for a housekeeper to say to a man like Dominic Moretti.
But I wasn’t just a housekeeper anymore.
Dominic paused, his dark eyes studying my face. He saw the fire in me. He saw the daughter of a murdered man who had spent two years scrubbing toilets just to find justice.
“Fine,” he said. “Follow me.”
We left Leo with the guards and rushed up the grand sweeping staircase.
My heart hammered against my ribs.
Anthony’s room was at the end of the long, dimly lit hallway.
When we opened the door, the room was quiet. Anthony was sitting on the edge of his bed, his legs swinging. He looked up at us, his large brown eyes wide with innocence.
“Daddy?” Anthony said softly. “Why is it so loud downstairs?”
Dominic’s expression softened instantly. The dangerous mob boss melted away, leaving only a terrified father.
He walked over and dropped to one knee in front of his son.
“Everything is okay, buddy,” Dominic said, brushing a hand through Anthony’s hair. “I just need to look for something.”
I watched as Dominic reached under the child’s bed.
He pulled out a heavy, dark metal lockbox.
It was covered in dust, shoved far back behind a row of old toy trucks.
Anthony leaned over, looking at it with curiosity. “What’s that? It’s not mine.”
Dominic didn’t answer. He took the rusted key attached to Isabella’s silver watch.
His hands were shaking.
I held my breath as he inserted the key into the lock.
It turned with a sharp click.
Answer One: The key from the crash site belonged to a box hidden right under the most precious thing in Dominic’s life.
Dominic flipped the lid open.
Inside, there wasn’t money. There were no weapons.
It was filled with letters.
Dozens of letters, wrapped in a faded blue ribbon.
And resting on top of the letters was a child’s drawing.
Open Two: Why were letters hidden here? And who drew the picture?
Dominic reached for the drawing first.
He unfolded it slowly.
It was drawn in crayon. Clumsy, heavy strokes of red and black.
It showed a car. A black car, completely smashed against a tree.
And standing next to the car was a woman with blonde hair, wearing a red dress.
Vanessa had blonde hair.
And she had worn a red dress to the charity gala on the night Isabella died.
I felt a cold chill run down my spine.
“Anthony,” Dominic whispered, his voice cracking. “Did you draw this?”
Anthony looked at the paper and shrank back against the headboard. He pulled his knees up to his chest.
“I didn’t want to, Daddy,” Anthony whimpered, tears filling his eyes. “She made me.”
The reversal hit me like a physical blow.
Vanessa hadn’t just hidden the box. She had forced an eight-year-old boy to draw his own mother’s death scene. She was psychologically torturing him.
“Why?” I asked gently, stepping closer to the bed. I knelt down so I was eye-level with the boy. “Anthony, honey, why did Vanessa make you draw this?”
Anthony wiped his nose on his sleeve.
“She said if I didn’t draw it, the bad men would come back and do the same thing to Daddy.”
Dominic closed his eyes. A single tear escaped, rolling down his hardened cheek.
He had let a monster into his home. He had let her sleep in his bed. He had let her near his son.
Dominic handed the drawing to me and reached for the stack of letters.
He untied the blue ribbon.
He opened the first letter.
I watched his eyes scan the page. The color drained from his face completely.
“Mr. Moretti?” I asked softly.
He didn’t answer. He dropped the letter onto the floor like it burned him.
He opened the second one.
Then the third.
He fell backward, sitting heavily on the carpet, his chest heaving as if he couldn’t get enough air.
“Dominic,” I said, forgetting my place entirely. I moved toward him. “What is it?”
He looked up at me. His eyes were completely hollow.
“They aren’t from Vanessa,” Dominic whispered, his voice filled with a horror I couldn’t comprehend.
He handed the letter to me.
I looked at the handwriting. It was elegant, sweeping cursive.
My dearest Dominic, the letter began.
If you are reading this, I am already gone. I couldn’t tell you the truth. You never would have let me leave.
I looked at the signature at the bottom.
Isabella.
My mind spun out of control.
Isabella wrote this. But the date on the top right corner of the paper made absolutely no sense.
The letter was dated three weeks after her car crash.
Isabella hadn’t died in the crash.
She had faked her own death.
Wait.
I looked closer at the paper. The stationary had a watermark.
A logo.
It wasn’t just any stationary.
It was the stationary from my father’s auto repair shop.
Before I could ask Dominic what it meant, the heavy wooden door to the bedroom slammed shut.
The lock clicked from the outside.
I dropped the letter and rushed to the door, twisting the brass handle. It was deadbolted.
“Hey!” I shouted, banging my fists against the wood.
A voice drifted through the thick wood of the door.
It wasn’t Vanessa.
It was Marcus, the head of security.
“I’m sorry, Boss,” Marcus’s deep voice echoed from the hallway. “But the Romanos pay much better than you do.”
May you like
I heard the sound of a heavy padlock being snapped into place outside.
And then, the faint, unmistakable smell of gasoline began to drift under the doorframe.
