Chapter 4 - The Secret Inside the Music Box
Claire’s body moved before her mind did.
“Owen!”
Vincent caught her around the waist as she tried to run from behind the desk.
“You can’t go out there.”
“My son is downstairs!”
“Daniel is with him.”
“I don’t care!”
A bullet struck the wall outside the office, spraying plaster across the floor.
Vincent shoved Claire lower behind the desk.
“You go out there, you die.”
“I’m his mother!”
“And that is exactly why you stay alive.”
The words hit hard enough to stop her.
Vincent pressed one hand to an earpiece. “Status.”
Static.
Then a voice: “East entrance compromised. We have three inside, maybe four. Daniel has the child and is moving to the safe room.”
Claire’s chest tightened.
“Safe room?” she whispered.
Vincent looked at her.
“You are coming with me.”
He opened a concealed panel behind a bookshelf. Claire stared as the entire wooden wall shifted, revealing a narrow staircase descending into darkness.
“This is insane.”
“Yes,” Vincent said. “Move.”
Gunfire sounded again, closer this time.
Claire followed him down the stairs.
The hidden passage was lit by dim lights embedded in the stone walls. It led to a steel door at the end of a long corridor.
Vincent entered a code, pressed his palm against a scanner, and opened it.
Inside was a room that looked nothing like a bunker.
There were couches, medical supplies, screens showing camera feeds, shelves of food, and a small bed covered in dinosaur blankets.
Owen was sitting on it with Daniel beside him.
“Mom!”
Claire ran to him and dropped to her knees, pulling him into her arms.
“I’m okay,” he said, though his eyes were wet. “Daniel said we were playing hide-and-seek.”
Claire looked at Daniel.
“Thank you.”
He nodded once, looking almost embarrassed.
Vincent stood near the security screens, watching his men move through the house.
“What do they want?” Claire asked.
“Proof that Adam’s ledger exists.”
“I told you, I don’t have it.”
“One of Russo’s men was caught near your old apartment two months ago,” Vincent said. “He was asking about a music box.”
Claire went still.
The room faded around her.
A music box.
She saw it in her mind instantly.
A small wooden box with chipped blue paint and a tiny silver ballerina inside. It had belonged to her grandmother. Owen used to play with it before bed.
When Adam died, Claire had packed it away in a plastic storage bin.
No.
Not packed away.
She had sold the storage unit last year when she couldn’t afford the monthly payment.
Her face drained of color.
Vincent noticed.
“You know something.”
Claire couldn’t speak.
“Claire.”
“I sold it.”
His expression hardened. “Sold what?”
“The storage unit. Last year. Everything inside.”
Daniel swore under his breath.
Claire’s hands began to shake.
“I didn’t know,” she said. “I didn’t know it mattered. We were behind on rent. I had to choose between the unit and keeping our apartment.”
Vincent stared at her for several seconds.
Then he turned to one of the screens.
“Find the storage company. Find the auction records. Find out who bought Unit 314.”
A man’s voice answered through the speaker. “Already working on it.”
Claire looked at Vincent with disbelief.
“You had people tracking my storage unit?”
“I had people watching for Russo’s people,” Vincent said. “Not you.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better.”
“It shouldn’t.”
The attack upstairs lasted another twenty minutes.
Claire sat with Owen in the safe room while Vincent issued orders in a voice like ice. Every time gunfire sounded through the security feed, Owen flinched.
So Claire told him a story.
Not one she had planned.
She told him about a little boy who got lost in a snowstorm and found a castle full of secret doors. The castle belonged to a grumpy king who had too many guards and no idea how to make pancakes.
Owen looked at Vincent.
“Is he the grumpy king?”
Vincent, still holding a phone to his ear, glanced over.
“No,” he said.
Owen smiled faintly. “You are.”
For the first time, Claire saw Vincent soften completely.
Only for a second.
But it was there.
By evening, the attack was over.
Four intruders had been captured. Two had escaped into the storm. No one in Vincent’s household had been seriously injured.
Claire was led back upstairs after the house had been secured.
The shattered windows had been boarded. Broken glass glittered across the marble floor. Men moved silently through the halls, cleaning blood from places Claire tried not to look at.
Vincent walked beside her.
“This is why I don’t want you leaving,” he said.
“This is why I don’t want to stay.”
He nodded. “Fair.”
They reached the guest room. Owen had fallen asleep on the couch downstairs with Rosa watching over him.
Claire stood in the doorway, exhausted.
“Why no mirrors?” she asked suddenly.
Vincent looked surprised.
“What?”
“There aren’t any in this house.”
His eyes shifted toward the empty wall across from them.
“My mother hated mirrors,” he said. “My father broke them when he was angry. She said a house without mirrors was a house where no one had to watch themselves become someone they hated.”
Claire didn’t know what to say.
Vincent looked at her then, really looked at her.
Not at her body. Not at the tired clothes she had arrived in. Not at the dark circles under her eyes.
At her.
“I don’t want you to become someone you hate either,” he said.
Claire’s heart stumbled.
Before she could answer, his phone rang.
Vincent looked at the screen, and all warmth vanished from his face.
“Who is it?” Claire asked.
He didn’t answer.
Then the phone began playing music.
A tinny, delicate melody.
The song from Owen’s music box.
Vincent lifted the phone to his ear.
A man’s voice spoke through the speaker.
“Hello, Vincent. Tell Claire I have something that belongs to her.”
Claire covered her mouth.
Antonio Russo laughed softly.
“And if she wants her son to stay alive, she will bring me the ledger.”
The call ended.
Vincent’s eyes turned lethal.
Claire whispered, “He knows where we are.”
Vincent looked toward the dark window.
May you like
“No,” he said. “He knows where we’re going.”
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