Chapter 2 - The Suitcase Beneath the House
Lucian Moretti’s private vault lay three floors beneath the penthouse, behind a steel door built into the foundation of a Manhattan townhouse that officially did not exist.
Emma followed him downstairs wearing borrowed clothes from Teresa—a gray sweater, black pants, and wool socks that slid slightly against the polished stone. She had refused to remain in Lucian’s bedroom, and Lucian had refused to let her leave the estate. Their compromise had lasted less than thirty seconds.
Now two armed guards walked ahead of them while another followed behind. Every hallway had been searched. Every employee had been ordered into the ballroom until Lucian’s security chief could confirm who belonged in the house and who did not. Victor Salerno’s body had already been removed, but Emma could still see the blood on the corridor floor whenever she closed her eyes.
“You knew my suitcase was here,” she said as they descended a narrow staircase.
“I knew there was a suitcase with the name Carter written inside it.”
“And you never thought to mention that when I applied for a job?”
“I did not see the application until after Teresa hired you.”
“You expect me to believe the great Lucian Moretti doesn’t know who enters his home?”
“I knew your name. I did not know your face.”
“That sounds convenient.”
“It is inconvenient enough that someone tried to kill you before breakfast.”
Emma glared at his back. Lucian had changed into a charcoal sweater and dark trousers. The casual clothes should have made him appear less intimidating. They did not. He moved with the unhurried confidence of a man surrounded by danger so often that it had become ordinary.
At the bottom of the stairs, Lucian placed his palm against a scanner. The steel door opened with a low mechanical sound. Beyond it was a windowless chamber lined with locked cabinets, artwork, sealed evidence boxes, and shelves of old ledgers.
Emma stopped at the threshold. “What is this place?”
“My father’s collection of secrets.”
“And you kept them?”
“I kept what remained after he spent his last year destroying evidence.”
“Evidence of crimes?”
“Evidence of everything.”
Lucian crossed to the far wall and unlocked a cabinet with a physical key. Inside sat a small leather suitcase, faded brown, with scratches along its sides and one broken brass clasp.
Emma’s vision narrowed.
She knew that suitcase.
Not from any waking memory, but from her dreams. For years, she had dreamed of snow falling across a train platform while Daniel held the suitcase in one hand and her wrist in the other. In the dream, he always told her not to look back. She always looked. And she always woke before seeing what chased them.
Lucian set the case on a table.
The initials E.C. were written beneath the handle.
Emma reached toward it, then stopped. “How did your father get this?”
“It was found in a locker at Grand Central two days after the warehouse fire.”
“Why would Daniel leave it there?”
“Perhaps he wanted someone to find it.”
“Who?”
Lucian opened a nearby drawer and removed a yellowed envelope. Her mother’s name was written across the front.
MARGARET CARTER.
Emma stared at the handwriting. “Did my mother know?”
“The letter was never delivered.”
“Why?”
“My father intercepted it.”
Rage rose so quickly that Emma’s hands began to shake. “Give it to me.”
Lucian handed over the envelope. The paper inside was thin and brittle.
Mrs. Carter,
Daniel asked me to tell you that Emma must never be allowed to remember the room beneath the warehouse. The men involved believe she saw their faces. He placed the evidence where only she can retrieve it. If anything happens to me, do not trust the police.
—L.M.
Emma read the initials twice.
“Who is L.M.?”
“My mother,” Lucian said.
Emma looked up.
Lucian’s mother, Isabella Moretti, had supposedly died when Lucian was a teenager. The household never spoke of her. Even Teresa lowered her voice when mentioning the woman.
“Your mother knew Daniel?”
“I did not know that until now.”
“You expect me to believe this letter sat in your vault for seventeen years and you never opened it?”
“It was sealed inside the suitcase cabinet. My father’s instructions said it was to be opened only if a Carter returned to this house.”
Emma’s skin prickled. “Then he expected me to come.”
“Or feared you would.”
Lucian examined the suitcase. The brass lock had no keyhole, only a circular indentation.
“The button,” Emma said.
He removed the black button from his pocket. The carved phoenix fit perfectly into the lock. When he pressed it, something clicked.
Emma stared at him. “Someone sewed the key onto your shirt.”
“Yes.”
“Who dresses you?”
One corner of Lucian’s mouth almost moved. “Usually, I dress myself.”
“I mean who handles your clothes?”
“Teresa oversees the laundry, but several employees have access.”
The suitcase opened.
Inside were a child’s red coat, a stuffed rabbit with one missing eye, a stack of photographs, and a small cassette recorder wrapped in newspaper.
Emma lifted the red coat. A dark stain marked the sleeve.
“Blood?” she whispered.
Lucian touched it with a gloved finger. “Probably.”
The photographs showed men unloading crates inside the warehouse. Emma recognized Victor Salerno. Beside him stood Lucian’s father, Enzo Moretti, younger but unmistakable. Another man wore a police captain’s uniform.
The final photograph showed Daniel alive on the night of the fire. He was speaking to a woman whose face was turned toward the camera.
Isabella Moretti.
Lucian’s control cracked. He took the photograph and stared at his mother.
“She died three months before this was taken,” he said.
Emma looked at him. “Then your father lied about her death.”
“Apparently.”
At the bottom of the suitcase was a wooden puzzle box. Emma touched it, and a violent memory tore through her.
Daniel pushed the box into her hands.
“Listen to me, Em. You put this where the bird sleeps.”
Smoke rolled across the ceiling.
A woman screamed from another room.
Daniel knelt and gripped Emma’s shoulders.
“No matter what they tell you, I am coming back.”
Then an explosion swallowed him.
Emma staggered away from the table. Lucian caught her before she hit the floor.
“Emma.”
She shoved him back. “Don’t touch me.”
“You almost fell.”
“I remembered him.”
Lucian waited.
“He gave me the box. He told me to put it where the bird sleeps.”
“The phoenix?”
“I don’t know.”
Lucian examined the wooden box. A carved bird covered the lid. Its wings formed a series of grooves.
Emma’s fingers moved almost automatically. She rotated one wing, pressed the bird’s eye, and slid the base sideways.
A hidden compartment opened.
Inside was a small metal key and a strip of paper bearing an address in Brooklyn.
Teresa entered the vault with Lucian’s security chief, Marco DeLuca, a broad-shouldered man in his late thirties.
“We found how Salerno entered,” Marco said. “He used an old service tunnel connected to the neighboring building.”
“Seal it permanently,” Lucian ordered.
Marco’s eyes shifted toward Emma. “There’s more. Salerno made three calls this morning. All to a prepaid number.”
“Location?”
“The last signal came from St. Agnes Hospital.”
Emma stiffened. Her mother had spent the final year of her life at St. Agnes before dying of cancer. “Who received the calls?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Teresa noticed the photograph of Isabella and nearly dropped the tray she carried.
“She was alive,” Lucian said.
Teresa’s eyes filled with tears. “I always wondered.”
“You told me she died.”
“I told you what your father ordered me to tell you.”
Lucian’s voice dropped. “You helped him bury my mother.”
“No.” Teresa shook her head. “I helped her escape.”
Silence descended.
Emma stepped closer. “Escape from what?”
“Enzo discovered Isabella had been giving information to Daniel Carter,” Teresa said. “Your brother worked as a delivery driver at the warehouse. He saw crates containing weapons meant for men who planned attacks across the city. Isabella wanted to expose the operation. Daniel agreed to help her.”
Lucian’s face had gone pale beneath his controlled expression. “Where did she go?”
“I don’t know. She promised to contact me when it was safe. She never did.”
“Why was she at the warehouse after her supposed death?”
“She returned for evidence. Daniel was supposed to drive her out of the city that night.”
Emma gripped the table. “But the warehouse burned.”
“Yes.”
“Who started the fire?”
Teresa looked toward Lucian. “Enzo.”
Lucian turned away.
For the first time, Emma did not see a Mafia boss. She saw a son discovering that his father had murdered the two people trying to stop him.
“My father told me the warehouse fire was caused by a rival family,” Lucian said.
“He wanted you angry enough to inherit his war,” Teresa replied.
Emma picked up the metal key. “The address in Brooklyn may tell us where the rest of the evidence is.”
Lucian’s expression hardened again. “We are not going there until Marco secures the location.”
“My brother died protecting this.”
“And Salerno died trying to stop you from finding it.”
“I’m going.”
“You are under my protection.”
“I never asked for your protection.”
“No. You climbed into my bed and demanded it in your sleep.”
Emma’s cheeks heated. “That is not fair.”
“Neither is being murdered because you are impatient.”
Marco interrupted before the argument could worsen. “I can send a team ahead.”
“No,” Emma said. “If someone is watching the address, armed men will scare them away.”
Lucian studied her. “What do you suggest?”
“We go as two ordinary people.”
Marco almost laughed. Teresa looked openly alarmed.
Lucian glanced down at his expensive clothes. “You think I resemble an ordinary person?”
“No,” Emma said. “But with a cheaper coat and less arrogance, you might pass from a distance.”
To her surprise, Lucian’s mouth curved briefly.
An hour later, they left through a hidden garage in an old sedan. Lucian drove. Emma sat beside him with the wooden box on her lap. No convoy followed, though Marco tracked them remotely.
The Brooklyn address led to a narrow row house near the river. Its windows were covered from inside. Snow had begun to fall harder.
Lucian checked the street before they approached. “Stay behind me.”
“I hate when you say that.”
“You may continue hating it while staying alive.”
The metal key opened the front door.
Inside, dust covered the floor, but a narrow trail of footprints led toward the basement. Someone had been there recently.
Lucian drew his gun.
The basement contained old furniture, rusted shelves, and a brick wall painted with a phoenix.
“The bird sleeps,” Emma whispered.
She pressed the wooden box against the symbol. A panel slid open, revealing a narrow passage.
They entered side by side. The passage led to a hidden room filled with filing cabinets and outdated recording equipment. A single lamp glowed in the corner.
Someone was waiting.
An elderly woman sat in a wooden chair, a blanket over her knees. Her silver hair framed a thin face, but her eyes were the same gray as Lucian’s.
Lucian stopped breathing.
“Mother?”
Isabella Moretti looked at him with tears shining in her eyes.
“My son,” she whispered.
Emma stepped forward. “You knew Daniel Carter.”
Isabella’s expression changed from joy to grief.
“Yes.”
“Tell me how he died.”
Before Isabella could answer, the basement door slammed above them.
Lucian turned, gun raised.
A man’s voice echoed through the hidden room.
May you like
“She doesn’t need the story,” he called. “She needs to die before she remembers the ending.”
Gas began pouring through the vents.
