Chapter 11 - THE GOLDEN KEY
I couldn’t breathe.
Who was the man with the scar? Why would he want me to hide something from Luca?
I looked at the golden key in my palm. It looked incredibly old, with an intricate lion’s head carved into the bow.
I knew exactly what this key belonged to.
I had polished it for ten months.
It belonged to the locked, iron-bound trunk in the basement archives—a trunk Luca had explicitly forbidden anyone from touching.
I looked at Leo. He was fast asleep, his chest rising and falling evenly.
I should have gone to Luca. I should have handed him the note and the key.
But the words on the paper haunted me. Find the rest before Luca does.
What if the ledger my mother kept wasn’t the whole truth? What if there was something else that could hurt my family?
I slipped the key into my pocket, grabbed a flashlight from the bedside drawer, and slipped out of the room.
The hallway was pitch black. The house was dead silent.
I crept down the back staircase, avoiding the squeaky step on the second landing.
When I reached the basement door, it was unlocked.
I descended into the damp, cold archives. The air smelled of old paper and dust.
I swept my flashlight across the room until the beam landed on it.
The iron-bound trunk.
I approached it slowly, my heart hammering in my ears.
I slid the golden key into the heavy padlock.
It turned with a loud, satisfying clack.
I pulled the padlock off and slowly opened the heavy lid.
Inside was a stack of legal documents, a bundle of cash, and a small, framed photograph.
I picked up the photograph and shined my light on it.
It was a picture of a young man and a young woman, holding a newborn baby.
The man was Luca’s father.
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But the woman wasn’t Luca’s mother.
It was my mother.
