Chapter 5 – THE LOCKED ROSEWOOD BOX

“Hello, little brother.”

Thomas Moretti stood in the kitchen doorway, rain dripping from his black leather jacket.

His face was gaunt, his eyes hollow with a desperate kind of sickness, but his grip on the gun was completely steady.

Luca didn’t flinch.

He stepped smoothly between me and the barrel of the gun.

“Thomas,” Luca said, his voice terrifyingly flat. “You’re dead.”

Thomas gave a dry, rattling cough.

“Only on paper. It was the only way to get out from under the Commission. You know that. They wanted my head for the Chicago port disaster. So, you gave them a burned body in a car.”

Luca’s jaw tightened. “I mourned you. For five years. Caroline cried at your empty grave.”

At the mention of Caroline, Thomas’s eye twitched.

“Don’t bring her into this,” he snapped. “I didn’t come here to talk about your dead wife. I came for the watch.”

“Why?” Luca demanded. “Why is my fiancée carrying your pocket watch? Why is she forging documents to sell my daughter?”

Thomas leaned against the doorframe, visibly exhausted.

“Because Vanessa works for me.”

The room went dead silent.

I couldn’t breathe.

“She always has,” Thomas continued, his voice echoing in the quiet kitchen. “Before she met you at that charity gala. Before she wormed her way into your bed. She was my girl, Luca. My eyes and ears inside your empire.”

Luca didn’t move a muscle.

“You used her to spy on me.”

“I used her to survive!” Thomas barked, coughing again. “Do you know what it costs to stay hidden? To buy anti-rejection meds on the black market after a kidney transplant they won’t put on the books? I needed money. Millions. And you have it all.”

Thomas pointed the gun toward the hallway.

“Vanessa was supposed to clear out the little girl so we could use the adoption money to fund my escape to Europe. And she had the watch. The key.”

Luca frowned. “The key to what?”

“To the rosewood box,” Thomas said, his eyes narrowing. “The one Caroline hid before she died.”

My stomach dropped.

Caroline.

“What are you talking about?” Luca’s voice finally rose, a dangerous edge bleeding into it. “Leave Caroline out of this.”

“Caroline wasn’t the perfect, innocent music teacher you thought she was, Luca,” Thomas sneered. “She found out I was alive three years ago. She found the ledger I left behind. The one that proves I didn’t burn down the Chicago ports… you did.”

Luca froze.

I stared at the back of Luca’s head, my mind reeling.

Luca burned the ports? Luca framed his own brother?

“She hid the ledger,” Thomas gasped, leaning heavily against the wall. “She sent me a message before she died. Said she locked it in her rosewood box. The watch has the combination engraved behind the clock face. I need it, Luca. Give it to me, or I swear to God I’ll put a bullet in the maid.”

He shifted his aim directly at my face.

“Charlotte,” Luca said quietly, without looking at me. “Where is the watch?”

“It… it’s under my mattress,” I stammered. “In the servants’ quarters.”

Thomas smirked. “Go get it. Now. You have two minutes.”

Luca held out a hand. “I’ll go.”

“No!” Thomas snapped. “You stay right here where I can see you. The girl goes. One minute, fifty seconds, Charlotte. Move!”

I sprinted out of the kitchen.

My heart hammered against my ribs as I tore down the dark hallway toward my room.

I burst through my door, dropped to my knees, and shoved my hand under the mattress.

My fingers closed around the cold gold metal.

But as I pulled it out, something else fell onto the floor.

A small, folded piece of thick stationary.

It had been stuck to the back of the watch.

I picked it up.

It was Caroline’s handwriting.

To whoever finds this watch: Thomas is lying. He killed the man in the car. He is coming for Isabelle. Do not let him near my daughter.

I stared at the note, terror flooding my veins.

Thomas didn’t want the ledger to clear his name.

He wanted Isabelle.

“Answer One, Open Two.”

I ran back toward the kitchen, the watch in one hand, the note crumpled in my pocket.

But as I turned the corner, I heard a loud CRACK.

A gunshot.

I skidded to a halt in the kitchen doorway.

Thomas was on the floor, groaning, holding his knee. Blood pooled on the white tile.

Luca stood over him, holding a gun I hadn’t seen him draw.

“You forgot, Thomas,” Luca said softly. “I always was faster than you.”

Luca looked up at me as I ran in.

“Do you have the watch, Charlotte?”

I looked at Thomas bleeding on the floor, then at Luca.

I didn’t hand it over.

Instead, I pulled the crumpled note from my pocket.

“Mr. Moretti,” I said, my voice trembling. “Caroline left a note. With the watch.”

Thomas’s eyes widened in panic. “Don’t read it, Luca! She’s lying!”

Luca ignored him. He stepped forward and took the note from my hand.

He read it in silence.

I watched his face change. The calm vanished. Pure, unadulterated heartbreak and rage shattered his composure.

He looked down at his bleeding brother.

“You killed an innocent man in that car crash to fake your death.”

Thomas spat blood onto the tile. “I had to!”

“And you came for my daughter.”

“She’s my insurance policy!” Thomas yelled. “You wouldn’t kill me with the kid in the crossfire!”

Luca slowly raised his gun, pointing it at Thomas’s head.

“Daddy?”

A small, terrified voice echoed from the hallway.

We all froze.

Isabelle stood in the doorway, clutching the broken silver ballerina in her hands.

She looked at the blood. She looked at her uncle.

She looked at her father holding a gun.

“Daddy, what’s happening?”

Before Luca could answer, Thomas laughed—a wet, ugly sound.

“Tell her, Luca. Tell her what was really in Caroline’s rosewood box. Tell her why her mommy really got sick.”

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