Chapter 2 - THE SILVER LOCKET
“A boy.”
Luca said the words so quietly they barely carried across the polished mahogany of his desk.
He didn’t look at me.
He didn’t look at Daniel.
He just stared at the empty space above the photograph, as if the air itself had suddenly changed.
“Yes, sir,” I whispered.
Daniel took a step forward, his hand hovering over his radio.
“Boss. You want me to—”
“Don’t speak,” Luca cut him off.
The silence in the study became heavy. Suffocating.
I stood near the door, my cheek throbbing, my hands twisting the fabric of my apron.
Luca Moretti was a man who controlled everything. The docks. The local politicians. The twenty-six guests laughing and drinking expensive champagne downstairs.
But right now, he looked entirely undone.
He slowly lowered his head, pressing his palms flat against the desk.
“Four years,” he murmured. “Elena left four years ago.”
He didn’t need to do the math aloud. We all knew.
If the boy in the photograph was four years old, Elena had been pregnant when she walked away.
“Daniel,” Luca said.
“Yes, boss.”
“Did you get her on the phone?”
“It went straight to voicemail. I’m running her current address through the network now. Should have a location in three minutes.”
Luca nodded once.
Then he looked at me.
“You’re shivering, Olivia.”
I hadn’t realized I was.
The adrenaline was fading, leaving behind a cold, sharp dread.
Vanessa was still upstairs.
She was going to be my boss. My employer. The woman who would soon control this house.
And I had just betrayed her.
“I’m fine, Mr. Moretti,” I lied.
He stepped around the desk.
He moved with a quiet, lethal grace, stopping only inches in front of me.
He reached out.
I flinched, expecting him to touch my bruised cheek.
Instead, he gently took my hands, untangling my fingers from my apron.
“You took a massive risk telling me this,” he said softly.
“I need my job, sir.”
“You have your job. For as long as you want it.”
He let go of my hands and turned to his security chief.
“Daniel. Go upstairs. Tell Vanessa the guests are asking for her. Bring her back to the dining room.”
Daniel frowned.
“You want her back at the party?”
“I want her where I can see her. If she’s sitting next to me, she’s not communicating with Mercer.”
“And Mercer?”
“Find him. Break his legs if you have to. But get his phone. I want every text, every email he’s exchanged with my fiancée.”
Daniel nodded and left the study.
Luca turned back to me.
“Olivia, I need you to do something for me. And I need to know if you’re brave enough to do it.”
My heart hammered against my ribs.
“What is it?”
“Vanessa’s coat. The one she wore this afternoon. Where is it?”
“In the mudroom closet. She told me to have it dry-cleaned tomorrow.”
“I need you to search it.”
I stared at him.
“Sir, if she catches me—”
“She won’t. She’ll be sitting next to me. Smiling for the cameras.”
Luca’s voice hardened.
“She hired a private investigator to track my ex-wife. She hid the existence of my son. She struck you to keep you quiet. People who plan things that carefully do not leave their pockets empty.”
He was right.
I nodded.
“I’ll do it.”
Two minutes later, I was slipping down the servant’s corridor.
The mudroom was dark. Smelled like expensive leather and rain.
I found Vanessa’s camel-hair coat hanging in the back.
My hands shook as I checked the pockets.
Left side. Empty.
Right side. A crumpled receipt for a coffee shop.
Inner lining.
My fingers brushed against something hard and cold.
A heavy silver locket.
It wasn’t Vanessa’s style. She wore diamonds. Platinum. Things that caught the light.
This was old. Tarnished.
I pressed the tiny clasp.
The locket popped open.
Inside wasn’t a picture of Luca.
It was a picture of William Mercer. The private investigator.
But it wasn’t a recent photo.
They looked young. Maybe teenagers. And Mercer had his arm wrapped tightly around Vanessa’s waist.
A wave of shock hit me.
Mercer wasn’t just a hired investigator.
He was someone from her past. Someone she loved.
“Olivia.”
I gasped and spun around.
Mrs. Carter, the head housekeeper, stood in the doorway.
Her face was pale.
“Mrs. Carter, I—”
“Don’t speak,” she whispered, stepping inside and closing the door.
She looked at the locket in my hand.
“You found it.”
“You knew about this?”
Mrs. Carter closed her eyes.
“I’ve known Vanessa since she was a little girl. Her family was ruined by the Morettis. Bankrupted. Destroyed.”
I stepped back.
“She’s marrying him for revenge?”
“She’s marrying him for access,” Mrs. Carter corrected softly. “She doesn’t want his money, Olivia. She wants to dismantle his entire empire.”
She reached into her uniform pocket.
And pulled out a small, black burner phone.
“She asked me to hold this for her during dinner. It just buzzed.”
Mrs. Carter turned the screen toward me.
A text message from Mercer.
Target secured. He’s smaller than the pictures. Heading to the extraction point.
My blood ran cold.
Target. Smaller than the pictures.
They didn’t just find Elena.
They had taken the boy.
Before I could grab the phone, the mudroom door swung open again.
Vanessa stood there.
Her red silk dress rustled in the quiet room.
She wasn’t smiling.
“Give me the phone, Mrs. Carter,” Vanessa commanded, her voice like ice.
May you like
Then she looked at me, her eyes dropping to the silver locket in my hand.
“And you, Olivia. You really should have stayed in the kitchen.”
