Chapter 3 – THE MISSING MONEY

The heavy gold pocket watch felt like a stone in my palm.

I stared at Teresa. Her chest was heaving, and her silver hair was coming loose from its pins. She looked older than she ever had, fragile yet fueled by a desperate, maternal terror.

“Mrs. Moretti, what is this?” I whispered, glancing nervously at the locked bedroom door.

“It was Antonio’s,” she said, her voice shaking as she sat on the edge of her mattress. “My husband. He never took it off. Everyone thought it was just a family heirloom, a piece of old jewelry. But it’s not.”

She reached out and pressed my fingers closed over the cold metal.

“It’s a key, Rachel. To a private vault Antonio kept hidden from the family business. A vault that holds the truth about Vanessa’s father.”

My stomach plummeted. Vanessa hadn’t just been a cruel socialite trying to upgrade her lifestyle. Her engagement to Luca had been a calculated infiltration.

“Vanessa found out about it,” Teresa continued, tears welling in her eyes again. “She cornered me in the hallway two days ago. She told me if I didn’t give her the watch, she would convince Luca I had dementia. She said she’d have me locked in a facility where I wouldn’t even be allowed visitors.”

Rage flared hot in my chest. I thought about Vanessa standing over this sweet woman, threatening her sanity just to steal a family secret.

“Why didn’t you tell Luca?” I asked gently, kneeling beside her.

Teresa let out a broken sob. “Because Vanessa said if Luca found out what was in that vault, the Bellini family would go to war with ours. She said Luca would be killed. I was just trying to protect my boy, Rachel. I didn’t care what she did to me, as long as Luca was safe.”

I squeezed her hands. “Luca is strong, Mrs. Moretti. He can protect himself.”

“You don’t understand,” she whispered frantically. “Vanessa already found the matching one.”

I frowned. “The matching what?”

“There are two keys,” Teresa breathed. “One was disguised as a watch. The other was a heavy silver bracelet. The one Leo wears.”

My breath caught in my throat.

The bracelet that fell out of Vanessa’s purse.

She had already stolen the first key from a six-year-old child. Now, she just needed the watch to complete the set.

“Rachel, you have to hide it,” Teresa begged, her hands shaking violently. “Don’t put it in the safe. Don’t give it to security. Vanessa has people inside the staff. She has to. Hide it in your room. Please.”

I looked at the desperate mother in front of me. I was just a maid. I made sixteen dollars an hour. I had a younger sister relying on me for her nursing school tuition. Getting involved in mafia secrets was the fastest way to ruin my life.

But I looked at Teresa’s tear-stained face, and I thought about how she had always treated me with kindness.

“I’ll keep it safe,” I promised.

I left Teresa resting quietly and slipped out into the long, dimly lit hallway of the east wing. The mansion was eerily silent. The guests had all been escorted out.

I hurried down the back staircase toward the staff quarters. My heart hammered against my ribs. I kept the heavy gold watch buried deep in the pocket of my uniform apron.

When I reached my small bedroom at the end of the hall, I locked the door behind me.

I took a deep breath, the adrenaline slowly leaving my body. I walked over to my small wooden desk to hide the watch in my locked drawer.

But as I approached, I froze.

The drawer was already pulled open.

My breath hitched. I rushed forward, my hands trembling as I frantically dug through the neat stacks of stationery and cheap jewelry.

My heart stopped.

The thick white envelope that I kept buried at the bottom was gone.

It contained four thousand dollars. It was every penny I had saved for the last eight months. It was my sister’s nursing school tuition, due in exactly three days.

“No, no, no,” I panicked, tearing the drawer completely out of the desk. It crashed to the floor, pens and papers scattering across the cheap rug.

It was gone. All of it.

Tears of pure panic stung my eyes. Who would rob a maid?

Then, my eyes caught something resting on top of my unmade bed.

It was a small, crisp piece of heavy cardstock.

I walked over on shaking legs and picked it up.

It was an Amtrak train ticket. A one-way ticket to Seattle, Washington. Departing tomorrow morning at 6:00 AM.

But it wasn’t the destination that made my blood run cold.

It was the name printed perfectly on the passenger line.

Rachel Morgan.

Somebody had stolen my savings and replaced it with a one-way ticket out of town.

I heard heavy footsteps echoing in the hallway outside my room.

Before I could even turn around, my locked bedroom door was kicked open with a deafening crash. The wood splintered, the lock shattering onto the floor.

I screamed, dropping the train ticket.

Standing in the doorway, blocking out the light from the hall, was Luca Moretti.

His face was a mask of cold, terrifying fury.

And in his large, tattooed hand, he was holding my white envelope full of cash.

“Pack your things, Rachel,” Luca said, his voice completely devoid of the warmth he had shown his mother. “You’re leaving.”