Chapter 3 - THE YELLOWED PAPER IN THE BOX
I stared at the silver box on the table.
Luca didn’t reach for it. For the first time since I had started working at the Moretti estate fourteen months ago, the untouchable Mafia boss looked genuinely shaken.
"Where did you get that?" Luca asked. The quiet danger in his voice was gone, replaced by a raw, jagged edge.
Vanessa smiled. It was a cold, victorious expression that stretched her red lips thin. "I found it in the floorboards of the master suite while the decorators were measuring for the new carpets."
Caleb peeked out from behind my apron, his eyes wide. "Daddy? What is it?"
"Take him upstairs, Rachel," Luca ordered without breaking eye contact with Vanessa.
"No," Vanessa interrupted sharply. "Let the boy stay. Let him hear exactly what his perfect mother was hiding before her car went off that bridge."
My stomach dropped. Isabella Moretti had died in a tragic accident on a rain-slicked highway four years ago. The entire city of Chicago had mourned. Caleb had been in the backseat and survived with only a broken arm and shattered memories.
"I said take him upstairs, Rachel," Luca repeated, his voice cracking like a whip.
I squeezed Caleb’s hand. "Come on, buddy. Let’s go check on your new jersey."
As I led Caleb toward the grand staircase, I glanced back over my shoulder. The yellowed paper had unfolded slightly on the table. I only saw a glimpse before the dining room doors swung shut, but it was enough to make my blood run cold.
It was a birth certificate.
But the seal at the top didn't belong to the State of Illinois. It bore the crest of a Catholic orphanage in Rome.
I walked Caleb to his bedroom. He didn't speak the entire way. The mansion felt entirely different now—heavier, darker, full of ghosts.
I helped him out of his suit jacket and hung the precious blue jersey with the number 12 carefully in his closet. Caleb sat on the edge of his bed, holding his defaced baseball glove against his chest.
"Miss Rachel?" he whispered.
"Yes, sweetheart?"
"Is Vanessa going to send me away?"
I knelt in front of him, looking him squarely in the eyes. "Absolutely not. Your father loves you more than anything in the world. He just proved that downstairs."
"But my mom..." Caleb’s voice broke. "Vanessa said my mom was hiding something bad."
"Your mother loved you," I said firmly, smoothing his dark hair. "Nothing in a silly box can change that."
I stayed with him until his breathing evened out and he fell asleep, the glove still clutched in his hands. I quietly closed his bedroom door and tiptoed back into the darkened hallway.
I needed to clear the dining room before the morning staff arrived. I walked quietly down the grand staircase.
The first floor was completely silent. The dining room doors were slightly ajar.
I pushed them open, expecting to find dirty plates and half-empty champagne glasses. Instead, the room had been swept entirely clean. The plates were gone. The silver velvet box was gone.
Luca was sitting alone at the head of the long table, staring into the darkness.
"Sir?" I whispered, hesitating by the door. "Should I turn on the lights?"
"Leave them off, Rachel," he said. His voice was exhausted.
I stepped into the room. "Is Caleb alright?" he asked.
"He's asleep. He was worried, but I promised him he was safe."
Luca rubbed his face with both hands. "Thank you for protecting him tonight. For standing by him when I wasn't looking."
"You were looking, sir. You just needed to see the truth."
Luca let out a hollow laugh. "The truth. The truth is a funny thing, Rachel. It changes depending on who holds the paper."
He slowly stood up. Even in the shadows, he looked massive, a man burdened by secrets too heavy to carry. He walked over to the marble fireplace and picked up something sitting on the mantle.
It was Vanessa’s beaded clutch. She had left in such a hurry she’d forgotten it.
"She thinks this piece of paper gives her leverage," Luca muttered, almost to himself. "She thinks she can hold Isabella’s past over my head to keep her place in this house."
"I can throw her bag away, sir," I offered quietly.
Luca shook his head. He unclasped the purse and dumped its contents onto the long dining table. A compact mirror, a tube of expensive lipstick, a set of keys, and a thick stack of ATM receipts scattered across the wood.
He didn't care about the makeup. He sifted through the receipts.
"Vanessa said she found that document under the floorboards," Luca said, his voice dropping into a deadly whisper. "But my wife didn't hide it there."
He picked up a small, folded receipt from a pawn shop on the South Side.
"How do you know, sir?" I asked.
Luca slowly turned toward me, handing me a small, square object that had fallen from Vanessa’s purse.
May you like
"Because Isabella gave this to me the day she died," he whispered.
I looked down at the object in my palm. It wasn't a piece of paper. It was a heavy, antique bronze key, covered in fresh, dark red rust—a key that looked like it belonged to a lock that had been buried underwater for years.
