Chapter 2 – THE KEY TO THE VAULT
“Wait until you see what I unlock tomorrow morning.”
Claire held the brass key in the air like a weapon.
Luca didn’t yell. He didn’t call for the security guards waiting by the front gates. He simply reached out and took the key from her trembling fingers.
“You aren’t unlocking anything,” Luca said quietly.
He dropped the brass key into his suit pocket.
Claire let out a sharp, desperate laugh. “Taking the key doesn’t change the authorization, Luca. The foundation bylaws require two signatures to open the primary vault. As of yesterday, my name is on that account.”
“Not anymore,” the foundation attorney said from down the table.
Claire whipped her head around.
The attorney adjusted his glasses. “Mrs. Venturi never signed the transfer of authority. The document you submitted yesterday was flagged by the bank this afternoon. The signature didn’t match her recent arthritis pattern.”
Claire’s face drained of color. She looked at Eleanor.
Eleanor was sipping her water. “I may be eighty, Rebecca, but I still know how to hold a pen. You forged my name.”
“Get out of my house,” Luca said.
Claire looked at the man she was supposed to marry. For a fraction of a second, genuine heartbreak flashed across her face. Then, the coldness returned.
“You’re going to beg me to come back,” she whispered.
She turned and walked out of the dining room. Her heels clicked sharply against the marble floor, echoing through the silent mansion.
Luca turned to the guests. “Please excuse us. The evening is over.”
Within ten minutes, the house was entirely empty of guests. Only Luca, Eleanor, Thomas the retired accountant, and I remained.
“Natalie,” Eleanor said softly, turning to me. “Would you please go up to the guest suite and pack Miss Lane’s belongings? Have the driver take them to whatever hotel she prefers.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I hurried up the grand staircase. My hands were shaking. I needed this job. My father’s assisted-living facility had raised their rates last week. If the Venturi family crumbled, I was ruined.
I opened the door to Claire’s suite. The room smelled of her expensive jasmine perfume.
I started pulling her silk dresses from the closet, tossing them into her leather suitcases. As I reached for a heavy winter coat on the top shelf, something slipped out of the pocket and fluttered to the hardwood floor.
It was a piece of paper.
I picked it up, intending to throw it into the suitcase.
But I froze.
It was a child’s drawing. Crayon on yellowed construction paper. It showed a little girl with blonde hair holding hands with a tall man in a blue uniform.
At the bottom, in clumsy, childish handwriting, it read: To my hero.
I knew that drawing.
I had seen it every day of my childhood, pinned to the corkboard in my father’s kitchen. I had drawn it when I was six years old.
But why did Claire have it?
I flipped the paper over. On the back, written in sharp, angry black ink, was a single sentence.
Ask the maid how her father paid for her mother’s surgery.
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