Chapter 2 - THE LOCKER
Luca stared at the computer screen.
The silence in the study felt heavy enough to break the desk.
“He used my key,” Luca repeated softly.
Thomas’s voice came through the speaker, tight and careful. “Yes, boss. The system registered your personal RFID chip at 2:41 P.M. at the west service corridor doors.”
Luca reached into the inside pocket of his suit jacket.
His fingers met empty silk.
He didn’t move. He didn’t curse.
Men like Luca Moretti didn’t waste energy on panic. They dealt in consequences.
“Where is Patrick right now?” Luca asked.
“In his suite. Door is locked.”
“Leave him there. Disable his electronic access to the rest of the house. Don’t let him know he’s boxed in.”
“Done. What about the girl?”
“I’ll handle Rachel.”
Luca ended the call and walked out of the study.
The hallway was dimly lit. The marble floors echoed slightly under his leather shoes.
When he reached the sitting room, the heavy oak door was slightly ajar.
He pushed it open.
I was sitting on the edge of a velvet sofa.
My shoe was off again.
An ice pack was pressed against my swollen ankle.
Dr. Harris, a quiet, gray-haired man who had been patching up the Moretti family for two decades, was packing away his medical bag.
Luca closed the door. The click made me flinch.
“How is it, Doc?” Luca asked.
Dr. Harris didn’t look at me. He looked at Luca.
“It’s not a sprain, Luca.”
“I know what a sprain looks like. What is it?”
“It’s a friction burn. And deep tissue bruising. Something narrow and hard was pulled aggressively tight around her ankle, cutting off the circulation. Given the width of the mark…”
Dr. Harris paused.
“It was a heavy-duty industrial zip tie.”
Luca’s eyes shifted to me.
I stared at the floor. My hands gripped the fabric of my apron so hard my knuckles ached.
“Thank you, Doctor,” Luca said. “Wait in the library.”
Dr. Harris nodded and slipped out of the room.
We were alone.
Luca didn’t stand over me. He walked to the armchair opposite the sofa and sat down, leaning his forearms on his knees.
He looked at me as a man, not as a boss.
“Rachel.”
I couldn’t look up.
“Look at me.”
His voice was gentle. That made it worse. If he yelled, I could shut down. But kindness from a man who ran half the city was terrifying.
I lifted my eyes.
“I saw the elevator footage,” he said.
My breath caught in my throat.
“I saw Patrick get in,” Luca continued, his voice perfectly level. “I saw him stop the car. I saw him walk out thirty seconds later with your right shoe.”
A tear spilled over my lower lash line. I wiped it away frantically.
“I didn’t do anything wrong, Mr. Moretti. I swear.”
“I know you didn’t. But I need to know exactly what he did.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat.
“He stopped the elevator between floors. He pushed me against the handrail. He had a zip tie already looped. He secured my ankle to the brass rail so I couldn’t reach the emergency button.”
Luca’s jaw clenched. A muscle ticked near his ear.
“Why the shoe, Rachel?”
I took a shaky breath.
“Because my uniform has no pockets. And I don’t carry a purse while I work.”
“So you hide things in your shoe.”
“Just one thing. My locker key.”
Luca frowned. Staff lockers were in the basement. They held coats, cell phones, and spare clothes. Nothing of high value.
“He zip-tied you to a rail to steal your locker key?”
“Yes.”
“And how did you get the shoe back?”
“He cornered me in the kitchen hallway ten minutes before dinner. He dropped it at my feet. He told me to put napkins in it to hide the swelling, and if I limped during service, he would make sure I never worked in this city again.”
Luca’s eyes darkened into something completely empty. It was a terrifying look.
“Why did he want your locker, Rachel?”
I started crying. I couldn’t help it. The exhaustion, the pain, the sheer terror of the last five hours finally broke me.
“Because of my son,” I sobbed.
Luca froze. “You have a child.”
“Toby. He’s six. He has severe asthma. His inhalers are expensive. Patrick knows I keep a spare box in my locker, along with my cell phone. He told me if I ever spoke about what I saw today, he would flush the medicine and make sure child services found out I was an unfit mother.”
Luca reached out and handed me his linen pocket square.
I took it with trembling hands.
“What did you see, Rachel?”
I wiped my face.
“At two o’clock, I was cleaning the master suite. Your room.”
Luca nodded slowly.
“I dropped a pillow,” I whispered. “It rolled under the bed. When I reached for it, I found something. It had fallen near the rug.”
“What was it?”
“Your master access card. The black one. It must have fallen out of your pocket when you changed suits this morning.”
Luca’s eyes sharpened.
“I put it in my apron,” I said. “I was going to give it to Patrick. But when I went to his office, the door was cracked. I heard him on the phone.”
“What was he saying?”
I squeezed the pocket square.
“He said, ‘The architect’s widow is here. She doesn’t know anything. I’ll have the vault blueprints by midnight.’”
Luca sat back. The air in the room seemed to vanish.
My late husband, David, was an architect. He died three years ago in a hit-and-run.
“When Patrick walked out of the office, he saw me,” I whispered. “He realized I had your card. That’s why he followed me to the elevator.”
Luca stood up. He paced to the window, looking out at the dark estate grounds.
“He took your key to get the master card from your locker,” Luca deduced, piecing it together.
“Yes,” I said.
Luca turned back to me. “Rachel, you need to listen to me very carefully. You and Toby are in danger. Patrick is not acting alone.”
“I know,” I said softly.
Luca paused. “How do you know?”
I reached into my apron pocket. My fingers trembled as I pulled out a heavy, tarnished silver object.
I set it on the glass coffee table between us.
It was a man’s silver pocket watch.
The casing was deeply scratched, and the chain was broken.
Luca stared at it. All the blood drained from his face.
“Where did you get that?” he demanded, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper.
“Patrick didn’t just take the master card from my locker,” I said. “He left this inside. Wrapped in a note that said, ‘Keep your mouth shut, or your son is next.’”
Luca slowly reached down and picked up the watch.
His hand was shaking.
“This is my father’s watch,” Luca said. “It was stolen from his body the night he was murdered.”
I stared at him.
But Luca wasn’t looking at the watch anymore. He had popped open the clasp.
Inside the lid, tucked behind the glass, was a tiny, faded photograph.
Luca turned the watch around so I could see it.
I stopped breathing.
May you like
The photograph wasn’t of Luca’s father.
It was a picture of my late husband, David.
