Chapter 2 - THE NAME IN THE MUSIC BOX
I held the note so tightly it almost tore.
Dante’s gun remained pointed at the floor.
That did not make it comforting.
Mia stood between us in pink pajamas, rubbing one eye.
“Daddy,” she whispered.
His expression changed instantly.
The gun disappeared beneath the back of his waistband.
“Go to Nora.”
I almost laughed from nerves.
He had threatened to turn my employment into detention an hour earlier.
Now I was apparently the safe option.
Mia walked to me.
I lifted her without thinking.
She rested her head on my shoulder.
Dante extended his hand.
“The note.”
I gave it to him.
He read the sentence once.
Then again.
His face became unreadable.
I watched his thumb move over Isabella’s handwriting as if touching the ink could produce an answer.
“She wrote this?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“I know my wife’s hand.”
The word wife came out differently from everything else.
Not weak.
Private.
“What was the music box?”
“Her grandmother gave it to her before our wedding.”
“Sofia?”
“No. Sofia was her mother.”
He looked at the red bird carved into the lid.
“Her grandmother’s name was Caterina.”
“Was she a Vassallo?”
Dante’s eyes lifted.
“Yes.”
My heartbeat accelerated.
“So my grandmother and Isabella’s family were related.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“You heard a song and saw a necklace.”
“And her dead wife left my grandmother’s full name in a hidden compartment.”
His jaw tightened.
“Do not call her my dead wife like she is a piece of evidence.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I know what you meant.”
He rubbed both hands over his face.
For the first time, he looked thirty-two.
Not feared.
Not powerful.
Just exhausted.
Mia stirred against me.
Dante lowered his voice.
“Put her back to bed.”
I carried her into the nursery.
Bella had not moved.
I tucked Mia beside her sister.
She caught my wrist.
“Red bird stays?”
I looked at the music box in my hand.
“Yes.”
“No.”
Her eyes opened.
“Red bird stays dark.”
A chill moved down my back.
“What does that mean?”
She shook her head and pulled the blanket to her chin.
I did not press.
When I returned to the hallway, Dante had moved into the guest room.
He stood at the window.
Rain still hammered Chicago.
I closed the door.
“Why did Isabella hide a note with my grandmother’s name?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did she ever mention Rosa?”
“No.”
“Did she ever talk about her mother’s family?”
“Rarely.”
“Why?”
“Because Sofia died when Isabella was nineteen.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
Dante turned.
“You ask a lot for someone who arrived with no experience and a debt problem.”
“I calmed your daughters.”
“You also walked into my home with a family connection to my murdered wife.”
“I did not know that.”
“Then prove it.”
“How?”
“Tell me about Rosa.”
I sat on the edge of the bed.
What was there to tell?
Rosa Bennett had been small, stubborn, deeply Catholic when convenient, and permanently suspicious of microwaves.
“She came to Chicago when she was twenty-one.”
“From?”
“Somewhere outside Palermo.”
“Name.”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know your grandmother’s village?”
“She refused to say.”
That caught his attention.
“Why?”
“She said old places made old trouble.”
Dante looked toward the note.
“What else?”
“She had one sister.”
“Name?”
“I don’t know.”
“Convenient.”
“Annoying, actually. I asked a hundred times.”
I thought harder.
“My mom once said Rosa’s sister married into a family she hated. They stopped speaking.”
“What family?”
“She never said.”
“Children?”
“I don’t know.”
He paced once across the room.
“Your mother.”
“What about her?”
“Name.”
“Ava Bennett.”
“Age?”
“Fifty-three.”
“Born in Chicago?”
“Yes.”
“Father?”
“Daniel Bennett. He died when I was twelve.”
“Siblings?”
“My mom is an only child.”
“According to?”
I frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“According to who?”
“According to reality.”
“Reality is proving flexible tonight.”
I hated that he had a point.
“Can I call her?”
“Not yet.”
I stood.
“You don’t get to decide whether I call my mother.”
“Someone killed Isabella with a bomb, Nora.”
The room changed.
His voice stayed quiet.
“That person was never found.”
I stopped.
“The police said it was gang violence.”
“The police say what evidence allows them to say.”
“Do you know who did it?”
“No.”
The honesty surprised me.
“If Isabella wrote Rosa’s name because she believed something might happen to her, then anyone who knows about that connection may be dangerous.”
“My mother could know something.”
“Exactly.”
“So I should call her.”
“No. You should not alert her before we know whether her phone is safe.”
I stared at him.
I hated that this also made sense.
“My brother—”
“Will be found.”
The words were immediate.
“Excuse me?”
“Arthur is locating him.”
“You told Arthur about Toby?”
“I told him to find your brother before Kowalski does something permanent.”
Anger flashed.
“You cannot just investigate my family.”
“I can.”
“I’m beginning to understand why people hate you.”
For a second, something dangerous returned to his face.
Then Mia cried out from the nursery.
Both of us moved at once.
We reached the doorway together.
The girls were sitting up.
Bella had her hands over her ears.
Mia pointed toward the music box.
“Make it stop.”
The melody had started playing by itself.
I looked down.
The lid was open in my hand.
But the key was not turning.
The clicking continued anyway.
Dante took the box.
Pressed one side.
Nothing.
Then I noticed a tiny red light beneath the carved bird.
“That’s not original.”
Dante’s face hardened.
He tore away the velvet lining.
Underneath the paper compartment was a modern black device.
Small.
Flat.
A transmitter.
Dante’s expression turned lethal.
He carried the box into the hallway.
“Enzo!”
Footsteps thundered.
A broad man in his late forties appeared with two security guards.
He had been one of the men watching me earlier.
“Sir?”
“Seal the floor.”
Enzo saw the device.
His eyes narrowed.
“What is it?”
“Find out.”
He took the box.
Dante looked at the guards.
“Every phone. Every camera. Sweep everything.”
The men moved.
I stood in the nursery doorway.
“Someone bugged a child’s music box.”
Dante looked at me.
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“We’ll know.”
“But if Isabella hid the note three years ago—”
“The transmitter is newer.”
“How do you know?”
“The battery would be dead.”
That was obvious.
My stomach twisted.
“Someone reopened the box.”
“Yes.”
“Recently.”
“Yes.”
Mia tugged my shirt.
“Red bird stays dark.”
I crouched.
“What does that mean, sweetheart?”
She looked at Dante.
Then at me.
“Mommy said.”
Dante froze.
“When?”
Bella answered this time.
“Before boom.”
The air left my lungs.
Dante crouched slowly.
His face had gone pale.
“What did Mommy say?”
Bella rocked.
“Red bird stays dark.”
Mia whispered, “Bad ears listen.”
Dante closed his eyes.
I understood first.
“She knew.”
He looked at me.
“She knew someone was listening.”
Three years ago.
Before the bombing.
Isabella had known she was being watched.
And she had taught four-year-olds—no, they would have been only one then.
That didn’t fit.
I frowned.
“How could they remember something from when they were babies?”
Dante shook his head.
“They couldn’t.”
“Then when did she say it?”
Mia answered.
“Mommy movie.”
Dante stared.
“What movie?”
The twins pointed toward the closet.
He crossed the room and opened it.
Clothes.
Boxes.
A shelf of old baby items.
Nothing obvious.
Then Bella said, “Behind dresses.”
Dante pushed hanging clothes aside.
There was a small wall safe.
I had assumed it was part of the closet system.
He entered a code.
Red light.
Wrong.
He tried another.
Wrong.
“Did Isabella use it?”
“I didn’t know it existed.”
That sentence frightened me more than yelling would have.
Mia walked over.
“Red bird.”
Dante looked down.
She touched four numbers on the keypad.
1.
9.
8.
7.
The safe opened.
Inside was a tablet.
A charger.
Three envelopes.
And a small video camera.
Dante lifted the tablet.
Dead battery.
Enzo returned.
“Sir, we found two more transmitters.”
Dante did not look away from the safe.
“Where?”
“One in the hallway smoke detector. One under the changing table.”
My skin crawled.
“Changing table?” I said. “They haven’t needed that in years.”
Enzo nodded.
“Exactly.”
“So it was installed before.”
Dante took a slow breath.
“Get the security logs.”
Enzo hesitated.
“Those only go back twelve months.”
“Then get the maintenance records.”
“Yes, sir.”
He left.
I looked at the envelopes.
Each one had a name.
MIA.
BELLA.
DANTE.
No Nora.
No Rosa.
Dante picked up his.
For the first time, his hand shook.
He did not open it.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because if she wrote this before she died, I had three years to find it.”
“You didn’t know the safe existed.”
“I knew everything in this house.”
“Apparently not.”
He looked at me sharply.
I softened.
“That’s not your fault.”
His expression made clear he did not agree.
I reached for the charger.
“Let’s see the tablet.”
It took six minutes to power on.
Those six minutes felt longer than the previous three hours.
When the screen lit, there was no password.
Only one video file.
Date stamped two days before Isabella’s death.
Dante pressed play.
Isabella appeared on screen.
Alive.
My chest tightened even though I had never met her.
She sat exactly where I had been sitting among the girls’ beds.
Dark hair tied back.
No makeup.
Terrified eyes.
“Dante,” she said.
He stopped breathing.
“If you found this, something happened and I was right.”
His fingers gripped the tablet.
Isabella continued.
“I don’t know who I can trust inside the house.”
Behind us, one of the guards shifted.
Dante looked at him.
“Out.”
Everyone left except me.
He did not tell me to stay.
I stayed anyway.
On screen, Isabella looked over her shoulder.
“They are listening through the nursery because everyone assumes children don’t matter.”
Dante whispered, “Jesus.”
“I found the red bird transmitter three weeks ago. I replaced it with one of my own. If the girls ever say ‘red bird stays dark,’ it means I showed them this video later. I recorded another version for them.”
So the twins had seen the message after her death.
Someone had shown them.
Who?
Isabella looked into the camera.
“The person you need to find is Rosa Vassallo.”
Dante glanced at me.
My heart hammered.
“She can explain why my mother lied about where she came from.”
A pause.
“And she can tell you why the Kowalskis believe my daughters belong to them.”
I went cold.
Dante’s face turned to stone.
The video ended.
Neither of us moved.
Then my phone vibrated.
I pulled it out.
Unknown number.
A text.
TOBY HAS THREE DAYS NOW.
Beneath it was a photograph of my brother sitting in his apartment.
Taken through the window.
Another message arrived.
LEAVE THE MORETTI HOUSE OR HIS DEBT DOUBLES.
I looked at Dante.
He looked at the screen.
Then one final text appeared.
AND STOP SINGING ROSA’S SONG.
Dante’s eyes lifted to mine.
Someone outside this room had heard me.
Someone knew my brother.
Someone knew my grandmother.
May you like
And suddenly the forty thousand dollars did not feel like the reason I had entered the Moretti penthouse.
It felt like the bait.
