Chapter 2 – The Silver Bracelet

Fifty pairs of eyes shifted from the weeping woman in the red dress to me.

A twenty-five-year-old maid in a black-and-white uniform.

My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird.

I looked at Mrs. Caruso.

Then I looked at Luca.

He was staring at me.

His world was unraveling by the second. His fiancée was the daughter of his housekeeper. His father was a man who bought children to hide family scandals.

And now, I was the one holding the next match.

“Emma,” Luca said. His voice was dangerously calm. “What did you find in my father’s study?”

I swallowed hard.

Vanessa let out a hysterical laugh, pointing a shaking, diamond-ringed finger at me.

“Are you going to listen to her? She’s a thief, Luca! That’s why I wanted her out of the house too. She’s been snooping where she doesn’t belong.”

“I was dusting!” I blurted out, my face burning.

I refused to let her turn me into the villain. Not tonight.

“I was dusting the bookshelves behind his desk. The heavy oak ones. And one of the books fell.”

“Which book?” Luca asked.

“A hollow one,” I said. “A copy of The Count of Monte Cristo.”

I had been too scared to tell anyone.

When the book hit the floor, it hadn’t fluttered open with pages. It had cracked open like a wooden box.

And inside was something that had made my blood run cold.

“I put it back,” I whispered, my voice trembling. “I didn’t mean to look. But I saw it.”

“Saw what?” Luca stepped closer.

Vanessa grabbed his arm. “Luca, don’t do this. My mother—Maria—whatever she is, she’s lying. They’re all lying to ruin us.”

Luca gently, but firmly, peeled Vanessa’s fingers off his tuxedo sleeve.

He didn’t look at her.

He kept his eyes on me.

“Emma. What was inside the book?”

I looked down at my hands.

“A heavy gold pocket watch. And a stack of letters.”

Luca frowned. “My father collected watches. That isn’t a secret.”

“It wasn’t his watch,” I said softly.

I reached into my apron pocket.

My fingers brushed against a piece of paper I had taken from the hollow book. I hadn’t stolen the watch, but I had taken this. I had to. Because I recognized the handwriting.

I pulled the folded paper out and handed it to Luca.

“It was a pawn shop receipt. From twenty years ago.”

Luca unfolded the receipt.

His brow furrowed. “A pocket watch pawned for five hundred dollars. The signature is… Arthur Reed.”

He looked up at me.

“Reed. Emma, that’s your last name.”

“Arthur was my father,” I said, a tear slipping down my cheek.

My father had died in a hit-and-run accident when I was five. My mother had worked three jobs just to keep a roof over our heads in Cicero. My brother and I grew up on food stamps and hand-me-downs.

“My father pawned his grandfather’s watch to pay for my brother’s medical bills when he was a baby,” I explained, my voice cracking. “My mother always cried about losing that watch. She said it was the only thing of value our family ever owned.”

I pointed a trembling finger toward the hallway that led to the study.

“That watch is inside your father’s hidden book, Mr. Moretti. Along with a letter written by your father.”

Luca didn’t hesitate.

“Show me.”

“Luca, wait!” Vanessa cried, but he ignored her.

He walked past the stunned guests, pushing through the heavy mahogany doors of the ballroom. I followed him, my sensible black shoes silent on the marble floor. Maria walked behind me. And behind her, Susan and Vanessa trailed, bound by panic.

We entered the dark, wood-paneled study.

It smelled of old leather and the expensive cigars Anthony Moretti used to smoke.

I walked straight to the third bookshelf.

I reached behind a row of encyclopedias and pulled out the faux copy of The Count of Monte Cristo.

I handed it to Luca.

He popped the wooden latch.

Inside, resting on a bed of faded red velvet, was a heavy, intricate gold pocket watch.

But it was what lay beneath the watch that made Luca’s breath catch.

He picked up a stack of letters tied with a black ribbon.

He slid the top letter out.

He read it silently.

I watched the color completely drain from his face.

“What is it?” Vanessa demanded from the doorway, her voice shrill with anxiety.

Luca looked up.

He didn’t look at Vanessa. He looked at me.

And the expression in his eyes was one of profound, crushing guilt.

“My father didn’t just buy watches,” Luca whispered.

He turned the letter around so we could see the letterhead.

It was from the Cicero Police Department.

“My father bought the police,” Luca said, his voice dropping to a horrified rasp. “Emma… the hit-and-run driver who killed your father twenty years ago. It wasn’t a drunk stranger.”

He looked at Vanessa.

“It was Vanessa’s mother. Susan.”

Susan let out a piercing scream and covered her face with her hands.

The reversal was complete. Anthony Moretti hadn’t bought Vanessa to protect her from a dangerous life.

He had bought her as collateral.

“My father paid the police to cover up the murder,” Luca read from the letter, his hand shaking. “And he kept the pawned watch as a trophy. He took Vanessa not to save her, but to ensure Susan never spoke a word about his own illegal businesses.”

I felt my knees buckle.

The man whose house I scrubbed.

The family whose floors I polished.

They had built their perfect life on the bones of my father.

Vanessa rushed into the room, staring at the letter.

“No,” she whispered. “No, this is a mistake. My mother—my real mother, Maria—tell him! Tell him Anthony was a good man!”

Maria stood in the doorway, her face pale.

She looked at the gold watch in Luca’s hand.

Then she looked at me.

“Anthony wasn’t a good man, Vanessa,” Maria said softly. “But Susan wasn’t driving the car that night.”

Susan stopped crying. She lowered her hands and stared at her sister in terror.

Maria pulled a faded, child’s drawing from her pocket.

“Susan took the blame because she was terrified. But she wasn’t driving.”

Maria pointed a shaking finger at Vanessa.

“You were.”

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