Chapter 2 - The Secret Hidden Inside the Watching Bird
Nobody spoke after Sebastian finished.
Not because they had nothing to say.
Because every person in that library understood something had just changed.
Five minutes earlier, the codex had been an old family problem.
A strange inheritance condition.
A puzzle created by a stubborn old man who refused to let go of control.
Now it was something else.
Something that involved my daughter.
I felt every pair of eyes in the room move between Emma and the book.
That was the moment I stopped seeing the Duca family as powerful people sitting around an expensive table.
I saw them as people who had just realized they were standing in front of a locked door.
And somehow...
My three-year-old child had the key.
I stepped closer to Emma.
Not because I wanted to interrupt.
Because every instinct a mother has told me to put myself between my child and anything dangerous.
Even if that danger wore expensive suits and owned half the world.
“Emma,” I whispered.
She looked up at me.
Her eyes were calm.
Too calm.
Children usually sensed when adults were frightened.
Emma sensed it, too.
But she did not understand why.
“Mommy?”
I forced a small smile.
“It’s time to come back.”
She looked at the book again.
Then at Lorenzo.
Then at Sebastian.
“No.”
The answer was soft.
But everyone heard it.
Marco raised an eyebrow.
“No?”
Emma shook her head.
“Not yet.”
For a moment, nobody reacted.
Then Marco laughed again.
This time, nobody joined him.
Because Lorenzo was not laughing.
He was watching her carefully.
Studying her.
The way someone studies a strange piece of evidence.
Not with anger.
With curiosity.
“Why not yet?” Lorenzo asked.
Emma touched her teddy bear’s repaired ear.
A habit she had whenever she was thinking.
“Because the bird is waiting.”
The room became colder.
Even though the fireplace was still burning.
Alberto Fontana slowly removed his glasses.
“The bird is waiting?”
Emma nodded.
“Yes.”
“What is it waiting for?”
She looked at the codex.
“For someone to stop looking at the wrong thing.”
Nobody answered.
I saw the confusion on every adult face.
But Sebastian...
Sebastian looked like he had just heard a voice from the past.
He walked to the table and pulled out the chair nearest the codex.
Then he sat down.
The old servant had served the Duca family for sixty years.
I had never seen him sit during a meeting.
Not once.
Lorenzo noticed too.
“Sebastian.”
The old man ignored him.
Instead, he looked at Emma.
“Who taught you about the watching bird?”
Emma looked at me.
Then at the codex.
Then back at Sebastian.
“Grandpa.”
The answer was simple.
But Sebastian’s reaction was not.
His fingers tightened around the edge of the table.
“Your grandfather?”
Emma nodded.
“My other grandpa.”
I understood immediately.
She meant my father.
The man who had spent his life teaching children art.
The man who painted landscapes in his small apartment.
The man who collected old puzzles and historical drawings because he believed every forgotten thing had a story.
The man everyone thought was ordinary.
Until now.
Lorenzo looked at me.
“What was your father’s name?”
“Thomas Carter.”
Alberto wrote it down.
The movement was quick.
Almost hidden.
But I noticed.
“Occupation?” Lorenzo asked.
I frowned.
Why did it matter?
“He was an art teacher.”
Silence.
Marco leaned back.
“An art teacher.”
The way he said it made it sound impossible.
I looked directly at him.
“Yes.”
Marco glanced at the ancient codex.
“Your father somehow knew a private Duca family cipher?”
“He didn’t know it was a Duca cipher.”
Nobody spoke.
The rain continued against the windows.
“My father loved symbols,” I explained. “He believed pictures were the first language humans ever created. He used puzzles to teach children how to notice details.”
Emma smiled slightly.
“Grandpa said grown-ups look too hard.”
Sebastian looked at her.
“What did he mean?”
Emma shrugged.
“Grown-ups think everything has to be hidden.”
She pointed toward the codex.
“But sometimes it is showing.”
Alberto immediately turned the book toward the fireplace light.
The movement was sudden.
Everyone leaned closer.
“What are you doing?” Lorenzo asked.
The attorney ignored him.
He studied the page.
Then the edges.
Then the symbols.
Twenty-three experts had examined this book.
But every single one had looked directly at the center.
Nobody had studied the spaces around it.
Because everyone assumed the message was inside the symbols.
Not beside them.
Alberto grabbed a pencil.
Then stopped.
His hand hovered.
“Sebastian.”
The old butler looked at him.
“You knew.”
Sebastian did not answer.
That was answer enough.
The room exploded.
Marco stood immediately.
“You knew?”
Isabella turned sharply.
“What does that mean?”
Lorenzo remained still.
But his voice became colder.
“Sebastian.”
The old man closed his eyes.
For a few seconds, he looked much older than seventy-two.
“I knew there was a reason your father protected this book.”
“That is not what I asked.”
Lorenzo’s voice was controlled.
Dangerously controlled.
“Did you know how to read it?”
Sebastian looked at him.
“No.”
A pause.
“But I knew what it was.”
Nobody moved.
“What is it?” Lorenzo asked.
The old servant looked toward Emma.
“The first step.”
“Toward what?”
Sebastian looked at the codex.
“Toward the truth your father spent his entire life hiding.”
The words settled over the room.
Lorenzo’s expression changed.
Only slightly.
But enough.
Because everyone knew the one thing nobody wanted to discuss.
His father’s death.
Officially, it had been natural.
A sudden heart condition.
A peaceful ending.
But powerful families rarely had simple endings.
Especially families like the Ducas.
Lorenzo walked around the table.
Slowly.
He stopped beside Emma.
I immediately moved closer.
But Lorenzo did not reach for her.
He simply looked at the page.
“Can you read it?”
Emma looked at him.
“I can try.”
“You are not afraid?”
She frowned.
“Of a book?”
For the first time, I saw something almost like sadness in Lorenzo’s eyes.
Maybe because everyone else feared what was inside.
And this child did not.
Emma carefully climbed onto the empty chair beside the table.
I wanted to stop her.
Every part of me did.
But something about the room made me wait.
Maybe because Sebastian was watching.
Maybe because Lorenzo was watching.
Or maybe because my daughter looked exactly like my father when he solved a puzzle.
Focused.
Certain.
She pointed at the first symbol.
“The bird means look behind.”
Alberto leaned closer.
“Behind what?”
Emma pointed.
“Not behind the picture.”
She moved her finger to the next mark.
“Behind the person.”
Nobody understood.
Except Lorenzo.
His expression changed.
“Person?”
Emma nodded.
“The bird is watching someone.”
A silence followed.
Then another symbol.
A circle divided by dots.
Emma studied it.
Her small face became serious.
“Grandpa said this one means…”
She stopped.
“What?”
Lorenzo asked.
Emma looked around the room.
At every person sitting there.
At every face.
Then she whispered:
“Someone here is pretending to protect the family.”
The fireplace cracked loudly.
Nobody moved.
Because everyone understood the meaning.
The codex was not just revealing a hidden message.
It was pointing at a betrayal.
A betrayal from inside the family.
Marco slowly looked around.
Isabella’s expression hardened.
Alberto lowered his eyes.
And Sebastian...
Sebastian looked at the floor.
As if he had been waiting sixty years for someone to finally say those words.
Lorenzo stared at the ancient book.
Then at his father’s old chair.
Then at Emma.
“Can you tell who?”
Emma shook her head.
“Not yet.”
“Why?”
She pointed to the backward-looking bird.
“Because it is still watching.”
A cold silence filled the library.
Then, for the first time since I entered the Duca mansion, Lorenzo Duca did something nobody expected.
He pulled out the chair beside Emma.
And he sat down.
Not at the head of the table.
Not in his father’s chair.
Beside a little girl holding a broken teddy bear.
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And together...
The most feared man in the room and the smallest person in it began searching for the truth hidden inside a sixty-year-old secret.
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