Chapter 9 – THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE AND THE PIANO KEY
I stopped breathing.
The small piece of paper trembled in my hands as the music box continued its haunting, tinkling melody.
Mother: Elena DeLuca.
Elena DeLuca was Roman’s mother. The matriarch of the mafia family.
But she was listed on this birth certificate as my mother.
“No,” I whispered to the empty room. “No, that’s impossible. My mother was a waitress in Boston. She died of leukemia when I was ten.”
But I stared at the dates. My birthday. The hospital in New York.
If this certificate was real, Roman DeLuca wasn’t just my employer. He was my half-brother.
My mind raced. I remembered the way Dorothy Lane had looked at me when Victoria tried to throw her out. Dorothy had told Roman that Elena made her promise to protect two girls. Roman assumed she meant Rose.
But she meant me, too.
I shoved the birth certificate into my pocket and snapped the music box shut.
I couldn’t tell Roman. Not yet. He had just gotten his life back. He had just found his daughter. If I dropped a bombshell that his sainted mother had a secret affair and hid another child, it would shatter his newfound peace.
I had to find out the truth first.
I walked out of my room, my heart pounding against my ribs.
I headed toward the grand library. The room had been restored since the shootout. Roman was standing by the fireplace, pouring two glasses of scotch. He smiled as I walked in.
“Claire,” Roman said warmly, holding out a glass. “To new beginnings.”
“To new beginnings,” I repeated, taking a sip, though the alcohol tasted like ash in my mouth.
I looked at the grand piano sitting in the corner of the library. It had belonged to Elena.
“Mr. DeLuca,” I asked carefully. “Did your mother ever mention… having regrets? Before she passed?”
Roman’s smile faded slightly, replaced by a thoughtful melancholy.
“My mother lived a life of secrets, Claire,” he said, staring into his glass. “She stayed with my father to protect me. But she once told me that the greatest tragedy of her life was leaving behind the only man she truly loved, long before I was born.”
My chest tightened.
“Did she say who he was?” I asked.
Roman shook his head. “No. Only that he was a good, honest man. Not a monster like my father. Why do you ask?”
“Just… thinking about Dorothy,” I lied smoothly.
“Dorothy knew all my mother’s secrets,” Roman sighed. He walked over to the grand piano and ran his fingers over the polished wood. “This was her favorite possession. Dorothy taught me to play on it.”
Roman pressed a single, white key in the middle of the board.
Clunk.
The key didn’t make a musical note. It made a dull, wooden thud.
Roman frowned. He pressed it again. Clunk.
“That’s odd,” Roman muttered. “The tuners were just here yesterday.”
He pressed the key harder. It stuck halfway down.
I walked over. “Let me see.”
I remembered watching Dorothy play. She always avoided that specific key, even when the sheet music called for it.
I wedged my pocket knife into the small gap beside the ivory key and popped it completely out of the board.
Hidden inside the hollowed-out mechanism of the piano key was a tightly rolled piece of microfilm.
Roman stared at it. He pulled it out and unrolled it against the lamplight.
It was a bank statement. An offshore account in Switzerland.
And the balance was seventy-five million dollars.
“What is this?” Roman breathed.
“Look at the name on the account,” I said, pointing to the top corner.
The account didn’t belong to Elena DeLuca. It didn’t belong to Roman.
The name on the account was Victoria Hale.
But before Roman could process the revelation, Silas burst into the library, his face pale and sweating.
“Boss,” Silas gasped. “We have a problem.”
“What is it?” Roman demanded.
“The transport van carrying Uncle Marcus to the federal penitentiary,” Silas said, catching his breath. “It was ambushed on the highway ten minutes ago.”
Roman’s blood ran cold. “Is Marcus dead?”
“No,” Silas swallowed hard. “He escaped. And the men who broke him out left a message on the side of the van. Written in red ink.”
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