Chapter 6 - THE WOODEN MUSIC BOX
The heavy iron door sealed shut.
The air in the concrete vault immediately felt suffocating, thick with the smell of old dust and cold metal.
Sofia let out a terrified whimper, reaching her small hands out toward me.
“Clara!” she cried.
I scrambled to my feet, my heart pounding violently against my ribs.
“Let her go, Lorenzo,” I demanded, trying to keep my voice steady. “She has nothing to do with this.”
Lorenzo laughed, a dry, humorless sound that echoed off the concrete walls.
“She has everything to do with this,” he replied, pushing Sofia roughly to the floor.
I immediately dropped to my knees, wrapping my arms around the little girl and pulling her behind me. I shielded her body with my own.
Lorenzo didn’t care. He walked past us toward the center of the room.
Sitting on a stone pedestal was a large, intricately carved wooden music box.
Answer One: The vault wasn’t filled with stacks of cash or gold bars. It was holding something much more personal.
Lorenzo holstered his pistol and reached into his pocket, pulling out a small glass vial filled with a clear liquid.
“You know, Clara,” Lorenzo said, admiring the wooden box. “I have spent five years trying to get into this room. Ever since my dear brother Alessandro became Don.”
He turned to look at me, his eyes cold and dead.
“My father, Elias, hated me. He knew I was ambitious. So he left the true power of the family—the ledger of every politician, judge, and police commissioner we own—locked inside this box.”
He tapped the wooden lid.
“And he coded the biometric lock to the bloodline he actually respected. His bastard daughter. Your mother.”
Open One: If the lock required my mother’s blood, how did Lorenzo plan to open it now?
Open Two: What was in the glass vial?
“My mother is dead,” I said.
“I know,” Lorenzo smiled. “I drove the car.”
The casual way he admitted to murdering my mother sent a wave of pure, unadulterated hatred through my veins.
“But genetics are a beautiful thing,” Lorenzo continued. “You share her DNA. Which is why I had Victoria bring you into the house. I just needed you in the right place at the right time.”
He tossed the small glass vial onto the floor at my feet.
It didn’t break.
I looked down at it.
“What is that?” I asked.
“The antidote,” Lorenzo said softly.
My breath caught.
“The poison we’ve been giving your father is slow-acting,” Lorenzo explained, pacing around the pedestal. “But it is fatal. That vial contains the only cure. Give it to him within twelve hours, and he lives.”
He pointed to a small glass scanner built into the lid of the wooden music box.
“Place your thumb on the scanner, Clara. Open the box. Give me the ledger. And you can take the antidote and walk out of here.”
Reversal: Lorenzo wasn’t going to kill me to open the vault. He was blackmailing me with the one thing I loved most in the world.
I looked at the vial.
My father. The man who worked two jobs to buy me school supplies. The man who sat up with me when I had a fever. He was dying in a hospital bed right now because of these monsters.
I reached out and picked up the vial.
“Don’t do it, Clara,” a small voice whispered.
I looked down.
Sofia was looking up at me, her green eyes wide and pleading.
“If he gets the book, he will kill my daddy,” Sofia whispered. “He’s a bad man.”
She was right. If Lorenzo got the blackmail ledger, he would become untouchable. He would slaughter Alessandro and his loyalists. He would rule the city.
I looked at Lorenzo.
“How do I know you won’t just shoot us both the second I open it?” I asked.
“You don’t,” Lorenzo smiled. “But you don’t have a choice.”
He drew his pistol again and pointed it directly at Sofia’s head.
“The scanner, Clara. Now.”
I stood up slowly, clutching the vial in my left hand.
I walked toward the wooden music box.
I raised my right hand, trembling, and hovered my thumb over the glass pad.
If I pressed it, I saved my father, but I doomed Alessandro and Sofia.
If I didn’t, Lorenzo would shoot a nine-year-old girl in the head.
I closed my eyes.
I pressed my thumb against the glass.
A green light flashed.
The heavy wooden lid popped open with a loud click.
Lorenzo laughed triumphantly. He stepped forward, shoving me out of the way, and reached into the box.
He pulled out a thick, leather-bound journal.
“Finally,” Lorenzo breathed, his eyes wide with greed.
He was completely distracted.
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Cliffhanger: From the shadows near the ceiling, a heavy metal ventilation grate suddenly crashed to the floor, and a massive figure dropped directly onto Lorenzo’s back.
It was Alessandro.
