Chapter 2 - The Silver Locket
Dinner felt like a stage play where I was the only one who knew the theater was burning down.
Vivien sat across from me, sipping her red wine, laughing at a joke I barely remembered making.
Her green silk dress caught the light. The diamond on her finger flashed.
To the rest of the world, she was the perfect future wife of Lorenzo Duca.
But every time I looked at her mouth, all I could hear were the words she had spoken to a terrified mother.
“Children wander. Gates get left open.”
“Lorenzo?”
Vivien’s voice pulled me back. She was tilting her head, her perfectly manicured hand resting on the stem of her glass.
“You’re a million miles away,” she murmured, offering a soft, concerned smile.
“Just business,” I lied smoothly. I raised my glass. “A complicated negotiation.”
“Well,” she said, her smile widening. “You always win those.”
I took a sip of my wine. “Always.”
My phone buzzed in my pocket. One short vibration. Rocco.
I wiped my mouth with a linen napkin and stood up.
“Excuse me for a moment, my love. I need to take this.”
Vivien nodded, turning her attention to her dessert.
I walked out of the dining room and down the long hallway toward my study. Rocco was waiting in the shadows near the door.
He didn’t speak until I closed the study door behind us and turned on the desk lamp.
“You were right,” Rocco said quietly.
He dropped a thick manila folder onto my mahogany desk.
“Three months of records. Bank statements, phone logs, security footage.”
“And?”
Rocco opened the folder. He pulled out a printed bank statement.
“Vivien has been making weekly transfers of ten thousand dollars. Not from your accounts. From her private trust.”
I frowned. “To who?”
“That’s the thing,” Rocco pointed at the highlighted line. “It’s going to a shell corporation in Switzerland. But I traced the IP address of the person accessing the funds.”
He slid a glossy photograph across the desk.
It was a surveillance photo taken outside a rundown apartment building on the south side of the city.
A man in a dark coat was standing under a streetlamp. He had a jagged scar running down his jawline.
I felt the air leave my lungs.
Marco.
My estranged half-brother. The man my father had banished from the family ten years ago for skimming from the syndicate and selling our people to the police.
“Why is my fiancée sending money to a dead man?” I asked, my voice dangerously low.
“I don’t know,” Rocco said. “But there’s something else.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small plastic evidence bag. Inside was a heavy, antique silver locket.
“One of the maids found this under Vivien’s vanity this morning while cleaning. She brought it to me, thinking it was yours.”
I took the bag and opened it, letting the silver locket fall into my palm. It was cold.
I clicked the tiny latch. The locket sprang open.
Inside was a photograph. But it wasn’t Marco.
It was Elena.
Mia’s mother.
She looked younger, standing next to a man I didn’t recognize. The man had his arm wrapped tightly around her waist.
“Who is the man?” I asked.
“I ran his face through the database,” Rocco said, his expression grim. “His name is Julian. He was Vivien’s older brother. He died of an overdose five years ago.”
The pieces of the puzzle suddenly scattered into chaos.
Vivien’s brother. Elena. Marco.
What did my quiet, terrified maid have to do with my fiancée’s dead brother?
“Keep digging,” I told Rocco. “I need to know everything about Julian and Elena.”
I left the study and walked upstairs. The house was quiet.
I didn’t go back to the dining room. I walked toward the staff quarters at the back of the mansion.
I stopped outside Elena’s door. A thin strip of light glowed from underneath.
I knocked twice. Very softly.
A moment later, the door creaked open. Elena stood there, wearing a simple gray robe. Her eyes were red, swollen from crying.
When she saw me, panic flared in her chest. She immediately looked down, avoiding my eyes.
“Mr. Duca,” she whispered, trembling. “Is something wrong with your room?”
“May I come in, Elena?”
She hesitated, then stepped aside.
The room was small but spotless. On the narrow bed, Mia was fast asleep, clutching a frayed stuffed bear.
I kept my voice low. “I found something tonight.”
I held out the silver locket.
Elena gasped. She stumbled backward, her hand flying to her mouth to stifle a sob.
“Where did you get that?” she choked out.
“Vivien dropped it,” I said watching her carefully. “Elena, how do you know Vivien’s brother?”
Elena shook her head, tears spilling over her cheeks. “Please, Mr. Duca. If she knows I spoke to you, she’ll hurt Mia. She swore she would.”
“Vivien will never touch your daughter. I give you my word as a Duca.” I stepped closer. “But you have to tell me the truth. Answer me.”
Elena closed her eyes. “Julian wasn’t just her brother.”
She walked over to a small wooden dresser. Her hands were shaking violently as she opened the top drawer.
She reached under a pile of folded clothes and pulled out a crumpled, deeply creased piece of paper.
It was a child’s drawing. Crayon on construction paper.
She handed it to me.
I smoothed it out.
It was a drawing of a family. A mother, a little girl in a red skirt, and a man holding a gun.
But the man in the drawing didn’t look like Julian.
He had a jagged red line drawn down his jaw.
A scar.
“Julian didn’t die of an overdose,” Elena whispered, her voice breaking. “He was murdered. And Vivien didn’t bring me into this house to work as a maid.”
I stared at the drawing. “Then why are you here?”
May you like
Elena looked at her sleeping daughter, then back at me.
“Because Vivien brought me here to use as bait.”
