Chapter 4 - THE POLAROID OF THE PAST
The crystal chandelier above us seemed to dim as the truth in the polaroid swallowed all the air in the room.
I stared at the photograph in Vincent’s hand, my mind struggling to process the impossible. The young, exhausted woman in the picture, smiling softly as she leaned her head against Anthony’s shoulder, was undeniably Scarlett. But it wasn't the cold, calculating Scarlett who stood before us now in a designer gown. It was a softer, younger version of her, a woman who looked completely, genuinely in love with Vincent's younger brother.
“Answer one question, open two more,” I muttered under my breath, my hands gripping the fabric of my apron.
We had discovered why Anthony betrayed the family. We knew about the sick child. But this revelation shattered everything we thought we knew about Scarlett’s motives. She wasn't holding Anthony’s illegitimate child hostage.
She was holding her own daughter hostage.
“Scarlett?” Vincent’s voice was barely a whisper, yet it cut through the silence like a scalpel. He looked from the photograph to his fiancée. “Lily is your daughter?”
Scarlett didn't answer. She backed away until her spine hit the dark wood paneling of the dining room wall. Her chest heaved, her perfectly manicured hands curling into tight fists. The arrogant mask had completely melted away, leaving behind a woman cornered by her own lies.
Anthony let out a broken, agonizing sound. He didn't look angry anymore; he looked completely destroyed.
“We were together before you ever met her, Vincent,” Anthony confessed, his voice thick with shame. He couldn't meet his brother’s eyes. “We were young. I was a mess, trying to prove I was tough enough to be part of the family business. When Scarlett got pregnant, we panicked. We knew Father would never allow me to marry a waitress from the wrong side of the tracks. He would have paid her off and sent her away.”
“So you hid her,” Vincent said, piecing it together.
“We hid Lily,” Anthony corrected, tears spilling down his cheeks. “Scarlett and I tried to make it work in secret. But when Lily was diagnosed with leukemia... the stress broke us. Scarlett couldn't handle the poverty, the constant fear, the hospital bills. She left us.”
The wealthy guests seated around the table were frozen in horrified fascination. A high-society Christmas dinner had turned into an unearthing of a mafia family’s deepest, most tragic skeletons.
“Two years later,” Anthony continued, his voice trembling, “you brought her home, Vincent. You introduced Scarlett as your new fiancée. The wealthy heiress from Chicago. She had reinvented herself. And she threatened to tell you about Lily, to tell you I had been hiding a child, unless I let her handle my finances.”
“I did it for us!” Scarlett suddenly screamed, pushing herself off the wall. The sudden outburst made several guests jump. “You were drowning, Anthony! You couldn't afford the specialists. I married into this family to get the money to save our daughter!”
“You didn't save her!” Henry Dawson shouted. The elderly driver’s voice cracked with raw, protective fury. “You locked her in a farmhouse with armed thugs!”
“They were private security!” Scarlett shot back, pointing a shaking finger at the old man. “I had to keep her hidden! If Vincent’s enemies found out there was a sick child, they would have used her to destroy the Morettis. I was protecting her!”
“By starving her?” I asked.
The words left my mouth before I could stop them. As a maid, I was supposed to remain invisible. But I had grown up in the foster system. I knew what it looked like when a child was neglected. I knew the hollow look in a hungry kid’s eyes.
Scarlett’s head snapped toward me, her eyes flashing with venom. “You speak when spoken to, Emily. You have no idea what it takes to survive in this world.”
“I know what it takes to feed a hungry child,” I said, stepping forward, my heart hammering. I looked at Vincent. “Mr. Moretti, Henry isn't lying. The men at that farmhouse weren't taking care of Lily. They were eating the meals Henry brought. And they were doing worse than that.”
Vincent turned his heavy, terrifying gaze to me. “Explain, Emily.”
I took a deep breath. “A month ago, Henry came to me at the back door of the kitchen. He was frantic. He said he found something at the Miller Road house. He didn't know who to trust, so he gave it to me to hide.”
“Why didn't you bring it to me?” Vincent asked, his tone demanding but not cruel.
“Because I didn't know who the little girl belonged to,” I admitted softly. “And in this house… bringing a secret to the boss can get a person killed. I hid it in the coatroom.”
I turned on my heel and walked swiftly out of the dining room, crossing the grand foyer toward the staff coatroom. My hands shook as I reached up to the highest shelf, pulling down a small, plastic storage bag I had hidden behind the spare winter blankets.
When I returned to the dining room, all eyes locked onto the bag in my hands.
I walked over to the head of the table and unzipped the plastic.
I reached inside and pulled out a small, worn winter coat. It was a faded pink color, heavily stained with mud and grease. But the most horrifying detail was the sleeves.
The cuffs of the coat were completely frayed, and the heavy fabric of the right sleeve had a dark, rusty stain dried into the nylon.
It was blood.
Anthony let out a suffocated gasp, reaching out to touch the fabric. “This is Lily’s coat. I bought this for her.”
“Henry found it tossed in the trash cans behind the farmhouse,” I explained, my voice tight with unshed tears. “Those men aren't security, Miss Scarlett. They’re hurting her.”
Scarlett stared at the blood-stained sleeve, the color finally draining entirely from her face. For the first time all evening, the arrogant, controlling woman looked genuinely, completely terrified.
“No,” Scarlett whispered, shaking her head frantically. “No, they promised me. They promised they would take care of her.”
“Who promised you?” Vincent demanded, his voice echoing like thunder. He grabbed Scarlett by the shoulders, shaking her once, hard. “Who did you hire to watch my niece, Scarlett?!”
Scarlett choked back a sob, her eyes wide with panic.
But before she could answer, I reached into the tiny, frayed pocket of the pink winter coat.
“She left a note in the pocket,” I said quietly.
I pulled out a piece of folded, waxy construction paper. It was a child’s drawing.
I handed it to Vincent.
He unfolded the paper. He stared at the crayon drawing for a long, terrible moment. The anger in his face slowly melted away, replaced by a cold, absolute dread.
“Answer one question, open two more,” Vincent whispered, his hands trembling as he held the drawing.
He slowly turned the paper around so Anthony and Scarlett could see what Lily had drawn.
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It was a picture of two large men holding a little girl. But the men weren't drawn with faces.
They were drawn with massive, winding black serpents tattooed down their arms.
