Chapter 2 - THE BLOOD ON THE KEY
"That isn't your name," Dominic said.
The candlelight flickered between us, casting long, sharp shadows across the white linen tablecloth. The hum of the expensive dining room faded into a dull, rushing sound in my ears.
"I don't know what you're talking about," I said. My voice was steady, but beneath the table, my hands were trembling. I pressed them against my apron to hide the shaking.
Dominic didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t have to. "Your father was Paul Laurent. A man who supposedly died in a car fire in Marseille before you were born. Your mother, Helene, took you to Brussels and changed your last name to Barret."
He reached into his jacket and slid the small note from the 1983 Burgundy bottle across the table.
It was written in the same formal, regional French I had just translated. But it wasn’t a vintage note.
The girl at Maison Noir is Laurent’s daughter. Marchand knows.
My lungs seized. Marchand. The smuggler from the alley. The name that had haunted my mother’s whispered phone calls in the middle of the night before she died.
"If Marchand knows who you are," Dominic said softly, his dark eyes entirely devoid of warmth, "you have less than an hour before your apartment is torn apart. Who else is there?"
Panic hit me like a physical blow.
"Leo," I choked out.
Leo was six years old. He was my older sister’s son, the child I had taken in four years ago when my sister succumbed to an illness she couldn't afford to treat. He was the reason I worked double shifts. He was the reason I had almost sold my mother’s locket for sixty dollars today.
He was at home in Astoria, asleep, with Mrs. Gable from down the hall checking on him.
I didn't wait for Mr. Ferraro. I didn't ask for permission. I stood up so fast my chair scraped violently against the hardwood floor.
I bolted for the staff exit, tearing off my apron as I hit the freezing February air of the alleyway. I didn't have money for a cab, but before my feet could hit the sidewalk, a heavy black town car slid to a halt inches from my knees.
The back door opened. Dominic was inside.
"Get in," he commanded.
I didn't have a choice. I slid into the leather seat, shouting my address to the driver. The city blurred past the tinted windows, a streak of neon and gray sleet.
"Why do you know my real name?" I demanded, my heart hammering against my ribs. "Why do you have a key that matches mine?"
Dominic looked out the window. "Because twelve years ago, my syndicate was paid to make sure your mother never left Brussels. I was the one sent to do it."
The oxygen left the car. I stared at him, the terrifying reality of the man sitting next to me crashing down. He wasn't just a wealthy customer. He was the monster in the dark.
"But you didn't kill her," I whispered.
"No," Dominic said, his jaw tightening. "Someone else got to her first. And I have spent twelve years trying to figure out who."
The car slammed to a halt outside my crumbling apartment building in Astoria.
I threw the door open and sprinted up the three flights of stairs, my cheap shoes slipping on the worn linoleum.
When I reached the third floor, my blood ran cold.
My apartment door was wide open. The wood around the deadbolt was splintered into jagged shards.
"Leo!" I screamed, tearing into the room.
The apartment had been destroyed. The mattress was slashed, the cushions torn, the cheap wooden chairs smashed.
"Sophie!" a tiny voice cried out.
From beneath the kitchen sink, behind the cleaning supplies, a small boy scrambled out. Leo was clutching his worn, one-eyed stuffed bear, his face streaked with tears.
I collapsed to my knees and pulled him into my arms, burying my face in his messy dark hair. He was shaking violently, but he was safe.
"A man came," Leo sobbed into my shoulder. "He kicked the door. I hid like you taught me, Sophie."
"You did so good, baby," I whispered, kissing his forehead. "You did perfectly."
Dominic stepped into the ruined apartment. His two massive bodyguards flanked the hallway outside. He surveyed the wreckage with the cold, analytical eye of a man accustomed to violence.
I let go of Leo for one second and dove under my ruined bed.
The floorboards.
I pried up the loose plank with bleeding fingernails. The shoebox was still there. They hadn't found it.
I pulled it out and opened the lid. The gold locket. The recipe card in my father’s handwriting. The small brass key.
Dominic stepped up behind me. He looked down into the box.
Slowly, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his own brass key. He knelt beside me on the dusty carpet and placed his key next to mine.
They were identical. Down to the microscopic teeth.
But as the dim overhead light hit Dominic's key, I saw something that made my stomach turn.
May you like
The deep grooves of his key were stained with dark, dried blood.
"That recipe card," Dominic said, his voice dropping to a gravelly whisper. "It’s not for food, Sophie. It’s a cipher. And my father died trying to translate it."
