Chapter 6 - Box 713Box 713 was located inside the kind of private bank that did not advertise because the people who needed it already knew where it was.
No sign. No public entrance. Just a brass door between an art gallery and a luxury watch repair shop on Madison Avenue.
Dominic walked in as if he owned the air.
The manager recognized him immediately and turned pale enough to make me wonder how many secrets were buried beneath the marble floor.
“We need access to box 713,” Dominic said.
The manager adjusted his glasses. “Mr. Russo, I’m afraid access requires—”
Dominic placed the brass key on the counter.
“And Amelia Reed,” he said. “The box is in her name.”
The manager looked at me for the first time.
His expression changed.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
“You knew my father,” I said.
His lips parted.
Dominic leaned forward. “Answer carefully.”
The manager swallowed. “Dr. Reed came here years ago. He said one day his daughter might arrive with dangerous company.”
I glanced at Dominic.
Dominic did not react.
The manager led us down a private elevator into a vault lined with steel boxes. My shoes sounded too loud. My waitress uniform had been replaced by a dark coat one of Dominic’s assistants bought without asking. It fit perfectly, which annoyed me.
Box 713 opened with the brass key and my signature.
Inside was no money.
No diamonds.
No passport.
Only a child’s music box.
A painted wooden sparrow sat on top.
My chest tightened.
I remembered it.
My father bought it for me in Prague when I was nine. I had loved it for two weeks, then broken the winding key and cried like the world had ended.
But this one was not broken.
I lifted it carefully.
Dominic watched.
“Open it.”
I raised the lid.
A soft melody filled the vault.
Simple. Sweet. Familiar.
My father used to hum it while cooking eggs at midnight.
The Sparrow sings.
I listened harder.
The tune repeated, but something was wrong. The notes were uneven. Not random. Patterned.
I closed my eyes and counted.
Three short. One long. Two short. Pause.
“It’s Morse,” I whispered.
Dominic’s eyes sharpened.
I grabbed paper from the manager and wrote the sequence as the music played again and again.
When decoded, it gave coordinates.
And one phrase.
THE BODY IS NOT JULIAN.
My hand froze.
Dominic read it.
His expression turned grim.
The manager made the mistake of stepping backward.
Dominic caught the movement.
“What did he give you besides this box?”
“Nothing,” the manager said too quickly.
Dominic’s guard closed the vault door behind us.
The sound made the manager flinch.
I stepped between them.
“He’s scared,” I said.
Dominic’s eyes did not leave the manager. “He should be.”
I turned back to the man. “My mother is missing. My father may be alive. People are dying because of whatever is hidden here. If you know anything, tell me.”
The manager looked at me.
Maybe it was my voice. Maybe my father had told him something. Maybe he was tired of being afraid.
He removed a small envelope from inside his jacket.
“Your father said to give you this only if you solved the music box without help.”
Dominic gave him a look that could have cracked glass.
The manager handed it to me.
Inside was a flash drive and a note.
Do not plug this into any machine connected to the internet. Trust the woman with the red gloves only after she lies to you.
I read it twice.
Dominic frowned. “What woman with red gloves?”
“The one who has my mother.”
The vault suddenly felt too small.
Dominic’s phone rang.
He answered, listened, and his face changed.
“What?” I asked.
“Our men found Luca’s car abandoned near the river.”
“And Luca?”
“No.”
Dominic looked at the music box in my hands.
“But they found Constantine Volkov’s driver in the trunk.”
My stomach twisted.
Dominic continued, “Alive. With his tongue cut badly enough that he can’t talk.”
The manager crossed himself.
I gripped the music box.
Luca was not just betraying Dominic.
He was betraying Volkov too.
Dominic’s phone buzzed with a message from an unknown number.
A photo appeared.
Luca Bellini stood in a chapel, smiling, one hand resting on my mother’s wheelchair.
Beside him stood the woman in red gloves.
Her face was finally visible.
I did not know her.
But Dominic did.
He whispered, “Sofia.”
May you like
His dead sister was alive.
And she was standing beside the man who had supposedly destroyed her.
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