Chapter 2 - THE WHITE BOX
The dining room descended into a silence so absolute, I could hear the rain lashing against the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Ethan’s small voice had cracked through the tension like a stone through glass. She told me if you ever found that key, our family would be over.
Camille stood frozen over the spreading pool of red wine on the white tablecloth. Her chest rose and fell in jagged, uneven breaths.
Luca did not yell. He didn’t even raise his voice. He simply placed the tiny brass key into his pocket, his eyes never leaving Camille.
“Ethan,” Luca said softly, his tone shifting instantly from mob boss to father. “Come here.”
The boy didn’t hesitate. He scrambled out of his chair and practically ran to his father’s side. Luca placed a large, protective hand on Ethan’s shoulder.
“Is he lying, Camille?” Luca asked.
“He’s a child, Luca!” Camille’s voice pitched higher, a desperate shrillness replacing her usual practiced elegance. “He misunderstood something I said weeks ago. You’re going to believe a twelve-year-old over the woman you’re marrying next month?”
“I believe my son,” Luca said evenly. “And I believe Sarah. Both of them saw a white box tied with red cord. The same cord someone used to tie a cellar key beneath a sabotaged chair.”
He gestured toward the hallway.
“Let’s go to the study.”
The estate manager, an older man named Vance, stepped forward, his face pale. “Sir, the guests—”
“Dinner is over,” Luca said without looking at him. “Have the cars brought around. Everyone leaves. Now.”
Luca’s older sister, Elena, stood up, her face a mask of aristocratic outrage. “Luca, you cannot humiliate us like this in front of the families. A broken chair and a mislaid package—”
“Go home, Elena,” Luca interrupted. It wasn’t a request.
I took a step backward, my hands falling to my sides. I had done my part. I had saved him from a broken spine, or worse. Now, it was time for me to disappear back into the kitchen where I belonged.
But as I turned, Luca’s voice stopped me.
“Sarah. You come too.”
Camille spun around, her satin gown rustling violently. “Are you out of your mind? She’s a waitress! This is family business.”
“She noticed the sawdust,” Luca replied, his dark eyes locking onto mine. “She knows what the box looks like. She comes.”
My heart hammered against my ribs as I followed them out of the dining room. The hallway felt endlessly long.
Luca’s private study was a heavy, masculine room, dominated by dark leather and walls lined with first-edition books. In the center sat his late father’s desk—a massive block of carved mahogany.
Luca walked straight to the desk. He didn’t check the drawers. He looked at Ethan.
“Bottom right,” the boy whispered, clinging to the fabric of his father’s suit jacket.
Luca crouched down and pulled the heavy bottom drawer open. He reached inside, his hand bypassing the hanging files, pushing all the way to the back.
He pulled out a flat, white box.
It was exactly as I had described it. And trailing from its edges were fragments of red cord, snipped hastily, exactly matching the piece I had found tied to the key.
Camille leaned against the doorframe, her face the color of ash.
“It isn’t what you think,” she whispered.
Luca ignored her. He set the box on the polished leather surface of the desk and pulled off the lid.
I stood a few feet away, holding my breath. I expected cash. Or a weapon. Or blackmail documents.
Instead, there were only two items inside.
The first was a faded, black-and-white photograph.
Luca picked it up, staring at it under the warm glow of the desk lamp. I saw his jaw tighten.
“Who is this, Camille?” Luca asked, his voice suddenly stripped of all warmth.
He turned the photo around so she could see it. I caught a glimpse of it. It was a picture of a much younger Camille. She was standing in a rainy alleyway, leaning against a dark sedan. But it was the man standing next to her that made the air leave the room.
It was Luca’s father, Donato DeMarco. And he had his arm wrapped possessively around Camille’s waist.
“He was my sponsor,” Camille choked out, tears finally spilling over her mascara. “Before he died, he paid for my schooling. That’s all it was. I kept the photo because I was grateful.”
“My father didn’t do charity, Camille,” Luca said, his voice dangerously low. “And he didn’t put his hands on women out of the goodness of his heart.”
He flipped the photo over. “Answer One,” Luca read the handwritten scrawl on the back. “There is no date. But the ink is fresh.”
Camille squeezed her eyes shut. “I didn’t write that. Someone sent it to me yesterday. They told me if I didn’t stop you from going into the cellar tonight, they would show it to you. That’s why I cut the chair leg. I just needed you to fall. I needed you to break an arm, a rib—anything to keep you upstairs so I could get down there first and find what they wanted.”
Luca stared at her, the betrayal registering in the cold, flat set of his shoulders.
“And what did they want, Camille?”
“I don’t know,” she sobbed. “They just said I had to find locker seventeen.”
Luca looked back down at the white box. He reached in and pulled out the second item.
As soon as the light hit it, my stomach dropped into a bottomless pit.
It was a delicate, tarnished silver bracelet. It was shaped like a braided vine, with tiny, distinct notches carved into the inside of the clasp.
“Where did this come from?” Luca asked, studying the intricate metalwork.
I couldn’t breathe. My vision tunneled.
I walked forward, my hands trembling as I reached out.
“Sarah, step back,” Camille snapped, trying to regain some shred of authority.
I didn’t listen. I touched the cold silver resting in Luca’s palm.
“Flip the clasp,” I whispered, my voice completely hollow.
Luca looked at me, his brow furrowing. But he did as I asked. He turned the tiny silver latch over.
There, etched deeply into the tarnished metal, were the initials E.B.
May you like
Eleanor Bennett.
“It’s my mother’s,” I said, looking up into Luca’s stunned eyes. “She lost this bracelet the night she died in a hit-and-run twelve years ago. Why is it in a box with a picture of your father?”
