Chapter 9 – THE DOOR IN THE BAKERY

The gala swelled with music and laughter, but I couldn’t hear any of it.

I stared at the small, tarnished brass key in my palm.

It opens a door in the old bakery.

The bakery. The small, brick building on the south side of Chicago where I had spent my entire childhood covered in flour, watching David and Mary bake bread before the sun came up.

We had sold the building to a developer to pay for Leo’s early medical bills right after the car crash. I hadn’t been back there in nine years.

Luca noticed my sudden stillness. He excused himself from a group of investors and walked over.

“Hannah? What’s wrong?” he asked, looking at the key.

“Thomas just gave this to me,” I said, my voice trembling. “He said David wanted me to have it.”

Luca’s protective instincts flared immediately. “I’ll call the car. We’re going right now.”

I looked at the crowd. “Luca, we can’t leave your grand opening.”

“The hotel is fine,” Luca said firmly, waving over his head of security. “Family comes first.”

Thirty minutes later, the black SUV pulled up to the curb in a quiet, working-class neighborhood.

The old bakery building was still there, but it was empty. The windows were papered over, and a faded “FOR LEASE” sign hung in the door. The developers had clearly run out of money before they could tear it down.

I stood on the sidewalk, the cold wind whipping my hair across my face.

Memories flooded back. The smell of yeast. The sound of my mother’s laughter.

“Are you ready?” Luca asked gently, standing beside me with a flashlight.

I nodded, gripping the brass key tightly.

We walked to the heavy wooden front door. I slid the key into the deadbolt. It turned with a stiff, rusty click.

The door pushed open, groaning on its hinges.

The inside was dark, dusty, and stripped bare of the old display cases and ovens. It felt like a tomb.

“Thomas said it opens a door,” I murmured, scanning the empty room. “But this key opened the front door.”

Luca shined his flashlight toward the back of the shop, illuminating the old hallway that led to the small office David used to use.

“Let’s check the office,” Luca suggested.

We walked through the dust. I pushed the office door open.

It was empty, except for an old, heavy oak desk pushed against the far wall.

I walked over to the desk, running my fingers over the scratched wood. I used to sit under this desk and color while David did the accounting.

“Look at the floorboards, Hannah,” Luca said suddenly, pointing his beam at the ground beneath the desk.

I knelt down.

Underneath the desk, one of the wide wooden floorboards had a small, brass keyhole set flush into the wood.

My breath caught.

I slid the brass key into the floorboard. It fit perfectly.

I turned it, and with a soft click, the floorboard popped up slightly.

Luca helped me pry the heavy board away.

Beneath the floor was a small, dark cavity.

I reached inside and pulled out a dusty, leather-bound journal.

It wasn’t a ledger. It was a diary.

I opened the cover. The handwriting was unmistakably David’s.

August 12th, the first entry read.

Two days before the car crash.

“I know Catherine is watching us,” I read aloud, my voice echoing in the empty office. “Franco is dead, and she knows we have the shares. We have hidden them in the cemetery. But that is not my greatest fear.”

I swallowed hard, flipping the page.

“My greatest fear is that Catherine will find out about the other child.”

Luca went completely still.

“The other child?” he repeated.

I kept reading, my hands shaking so badly I could barely hold the book.

“Franco didn’t just have an affair,” David had written. “The woman he loved… she had twins.”

The journal slipped from my hands, landing with a dull thud on the dusty floorboards.

Twins.

“You have a twin sibling,” Luca whispered, the shock radiating through his voice.

“I… I always thought it was just me,” I stammered, my mind spinning. “David and Mary never said anything. There were no pictures. Nothing.”

Luca picked up the journal and quickly scanned the rest of the page.

“David says here that Franco took you to protect you,” Luca read. “But the mother fled with the other child before Franco could secure them both. They disappeared into the foster system.”

I stared at the dark hole in the floor.

I wasn’t alone in the world. Somewhere out there, I had a twin.

“He wrote down a name,” Luca said, his voice tightening.

He pointed to the bottom of the page.

“The boy’s name,” David had written, “is Leo.”

TITLE: THE BOY IN THE BED

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