Chapter 3 - THE MUSIC BOX
Roman DeLuca did not breathe for five full seconds.
He stared at the faded Polaroid on the center console, his dark eyes tracing the young, defiant face of the girl with her arm around Kate. Then he looked at the blood-stained note in the plastic bag.
“This is a trick,” Roman growled, the dangerous edge returning to his voice. His hand instinctively moved toward the holster hidden beneath his jacket. “Who sent you? Silvio? The Moretti family?”
Kate flinched back, pressing herself against the leather door. “I don’t even know who those people are! I’m a waitress! You came into my restaurant, remember?”
“Men have spent years setting up deeper traps than this,” Roman snapped.
“Look at the boy,” Kate shot back, pointing a trembling finger at Eli.
Eli was leaning over the console, ignoring the tension radiating from his father. The five-year-old’s eyes were locked on the Polaroid. His small, delicate finger traced the image of the older girl in the photo. Specifically, he was touching the dark, heavy wool coat she was wearing.
“That’s Mommy,” Eli whispered. “She’s wearing her favorite coat.”
Roman froze.
“Mommy has a scar right here,” Eli continued, pointing to his own left eyebrow. “From when she fell out of a tree.”
Kate gasped, covering her mouth with her hands. “Sarah got that scar when she was twelve. We were climbing the oak tree behind our foster home.”
Roman slowly withdrew his hand from his jacket. The cold, logical part of his brain—the part that kept him alive in a brutal underworld—was fighting a losing battle against the undeniable truth sitting in front of him.
“She told me it was a skiing accident in the Swiss Alps,” Roman murmured, almost to himself.
“She lied,” Kate said softly. “To both of us.”
The SUV banked sharply, pulling off the main road. The heavy iron gates of the DeLuca estate loomed ahead, hidden behind a thick perimeter of dark pine trees. The gates swung open silently, and the car glided up a long, winding driveway toward a massive stone mansion.
“Marco,” Roman commanded as the car stopped. “Secure the perimeter. Nobody enters the east wing.”
“Yes, boss,” the massive bodyguard replied, stepping out into the freezing night air.
Roman turned to Kate. “Bring the boy.”
Kate unbuckled Eli, who immediately reached for her hand again. Together, they followed Roman into the cavernous foyer of the mansion. It was beautiful, but it felt like a museum. Cold. Untouched.
Roman led them past the grand staircase, down a long hallway lined with expensive, abstract art, and stopped in front of a heavy oak door. He pulled a brass key from his pocket, unlocked the deadbolt, and pushed the door open.
“I haven’t let anyone in here since the funeral,” Roman said, his voice thick with suppressed emotion.
Kate stepped inside. The room smelled faintly of lavender and expensive vanilla perfume. It was a private study, lined with bookshelves and soft, velvet furniture. On the center desk sat framed photographs of Roman, Eli, and a stunningly beautiful woman with piercing green eyes.
Sarah. Sofia. Whatever her name was now, it was undeniably the sister Kate had mourned for a decade.
“If she was your sister, why did she let you believe she was dead?” Roman asked, standing in the doorway like a ghost haunting his own house.
“I don’t know,” Kate whispered, stepping toward the desk. “We were separated in the foster system when I was eight. The social worker told me she died in a fire at a group home in Chicago.”
“She ran,” Roman deduced quietly. “She faked her death to escape something. Or someone.”
“And she used my grandmother’s name—Margaret Miller—to hide the breadcrumbs,” Kate realized.
“The note said the melody holds the lock,” Roman said, stepping into the room. He walked past the desk, toward a beautiful, antique vanity table in the corner.
Resting on top of the polished wood was an exquisite, heavy wooden music box. It was carved from dark mahogany, inlaid with mother-of-pearl vines.
Roman carefully picked it up and brought it to the desk.
“I tried to open this for weeks after she died,” Roman confessed. “I had my best safecrackers look at it. It’s rigged. If you try to force the hinges, internal acid vials will shatter and destroy whatever is inside.”
Kate leaned over the box. On the front panel, beautifully disguised within the mother-of-pearl vines, were two tiny brass keyholes.
“She has the other key,” Kate repeated the note’s words.
Without hesitating, Kate reached up and unclasped the silver chain from her neck. She slid the tiny brass key off the metal ring and held it out.
Roman pulled a matching brass key from his pocket. “I found this woven into the lining of her wedding dress.”
They looked at each other. The tension in the room was palpable.
“On three,” Roman said.
Kate inserted her key into the left lock. Roman inserted his into the right.
“One. Two. Three.”
They turned the keys simultaneously.
Click.
The heavy mahogany lid popped open a fraction of an inch. A soft, tinkling, mechanical melody immediately began to play.
It was the lullaby. The same six notes Kate had hummed in the restaurant.
Kate’s heart hammered as Roman slowly lifted the lid. She braced herself to see millions in cash, a list of mafia targets, or a confession of treason.
Instead, the box was almost entirely empty.
Lying in the center of the dark velvet lining was nothing but a small, faded hospital wristband.
Roman frowned, picking it up delicately. “This is it? A souvenir?”
But Eli, who had dragged a chair over to peer over the desk, suddenly gasped. The little boy reached out and touched the faded plastic band.
“That’s my big brother’s name,” Eli said plainly.
Roman froze. He looked down at the tiny plastic band in his hands.
Kate leaned in to read the faded ink printed on the plastic.
Baby Boy DeLuca.
Name: Leo.
DOB: October 14th.
Kate did the math instantly. “Roman… this date. This was three years before Eli was born.”
Roman’s face turned the color of ash. He stared at the hospital band, his chest rising and falling in rapid, shallow breaths.
“I only have one son,” Roman whispered, his voice trembling for the first time.
“No, you don’t,” a deep voice said from the doorway.
Kate spun around.
Marco, the trusted, silent bodyguard, was standing inside the room. But his hands weren't resting at his sides anymore.
May you like
He was holding a suppressed 9mm pistol, and he was pointing it directly at Roman’s chest.
“Put the bracelet back in the box, Roman,” Marco said softly. “I promised her you’d never find out.”
