Chapter 3 – THE KEY TO MY OWN HOUSE

I stared at the brass key in my hand.

Locker 402.

My mother’s locker at the First National Bank downtown.

“Where did you get this?” I demanded.

My voice shook.

I was just a maid. I swept floors. I polished silver.

The mafia and their dark secrets were supposed to exist on a completely different planet from my family’s overdue property taxes.

Elias coughed, clutching his ribs.

“Your mother… Sarah Reed.”

Luca turned to me, his eyes sharp.

“Your mother knows him?”

“No!” I stepped back, clutching the key.

“My mother is a retired schoolteacher. She’s never met anyone from this family. She doesn’t even like me working here.”

“She didn’t know who I was,” Elias whispered.

He leaned his head against the cold stone.

“Eleven years ago, Michael told me to find someone invisible. Someone outside the life. Someone desperate enough to accept a monthly envelope of cash to maintain a bank locker, but honest enough never to look inside.”

My stomach dropped.

Every month, for the past ten years, my mother received a blank envelope with three hundred dollars in cash.

She always told me it was an anonymous charity stipend for widows.

It paid for my sister’s braces. It kept our heat on.

“What’s in the locker, Elias?” Luca asked.

His voice was terrifyingly calm again.

“The coordinates,” Elias said.

“The location of the boy. And the proof of what she did.”

He pointed a shaking finger at Vanessa.

Vanessa’s eyes widened.

She looked at Marco.

“Marco. Shoot him.”

Marco didn’t move.

He stood like a statue in the rain.

“I am your future boss!” Vanessa shrieked, the rain plastering her hair to her face.

“Shoot the old man and take the key from the maid!”

Marco slowly reached into his jacket.

But he didn’t pull out a gun.

He pulled out his radio.

“Lock down the perimeter. No one leaves the dining room.”

Vanessa realized she had no power here.

She turned and bolted into the rain.

“Let her go,” Luca said.

Marco lowered his radio, surprised. “Sir?”

“The gates are locked. She can’t leave the estate.”

Luca turned back to me.

“Emma. I need you to go to that bank tomorrow morning.”

“No.”

I shocked myself by saying it.

I took another step back.

“I’m quitting. Right now. You can keep the key. I’m going home to my family.”

Luca stood up.

He was a tall man, imposing in the shadows, but his eyes weren’t angry.

They were pleading.

“Emma, if Vanessa’s family finds out your mother has that locker, your family isn’t safe anymore.”

A cold spike of pure panic hit my chest.

He was right.

I was already in this.

Atlas let out a sharp bark.

The old dog stumbled away from Elias and walked toward a pile of rotting burlap sacks in the corner of the shed.

He began digging frantically with his front paws.

“Atlas, no,” I said, moving to stop him.

He was too weak.

But Atlas grabbed something in his teeth and pulled.

The burlap shifted.

Underneath the sacks, half-buried in the dirt, was a small, rusted lockbox.

Luca knelt and wiped the mud from the top.

“My father’s field box.”

“He left it there the night he died,” Elias wheezed.

“I buried it before I ran.”

Luca grabbed a heavy wrench from a nearby shelf.

He brought it down hard on the rusted latch.

The metal snapped.

Luca opened the lid.

Inside was a stack of old passports.

A thick bundle of hundred-dollar bills.

And a torn ticket stub.

I leaned in closer.

It was a train ticket to Montreal.

Dated eleven years ago. The exact night Michael Moretti died.

Luca picked up the ticket.

He flipped it over.

There was a name written on the back in blue ink.

Luca’s face went completely blank.

He slowly handed the ticket to me.

I looked at the name.

Marco Vance.

I looked up.

Marco, the loyal head of security, the man who had just defied Vanessa to protect us.

Marco was staring at the ticket.

Before Luca could say a word, Marco pulled his gun.

He didn’t aim it at Vanessa.

He didn’t aim it at Elias.

He aimed it directly at Luca’s chest.

“I’m sorry, Boss,” Marco said.

His voice was perfectly steady.

Then, Marco stepped backward out of the shed.

He slammed the heavy wooden door shut, plunging us into total darkness.

The lock clicked into place.

TITLE: The Traitor In The Light

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