Chapter 5 - What Survived Inside the Broken Music Box
I watched Darius Kane destroy the last thing my father had given me.
The music box hit the wall once.
Twice.
On the third strike, red lacquer and tiny brass gears scattered across my apartment floor.
Darius held up the broken base and stared into it.
His expression changed.
Confusion.
Then anger.
"Nothing," he growled into the camera.
My mother exhaled beside me.
Victor's eyes narrowed.
"He expected something inside."
"So did I," I said.
Darius dropped the pieces.
Then he walked toward the camera.
His enormous face filled the screen.
"Your father always did enjoy games, Lily."
He leaned closer.
"Tell Eleanor that hiding only works until someone gets tired of looking."
The feed went black.
My mother went pale.
Victor looked at Adrian.
"How long ago was that image delayed?"
"Twelve seconds."
"Get a team there. No sirens."
"Already moving."
I turned toward the door.
Victor caught my arm.
"No."
"That is my apartment."
"And Darius may still be in it."
"He smashed the box because he thought the ledger was there. It wasn't. Maybe he missed something."
"Then my people will find it."
I pulled free.
"Your people? Five of your people abandoned you tonight, and one just tried to shoot us. Forgive me if the phrase doesn't calm me down."
The words landed harder than I intended.
Victor went still.
Adrian looked away.
My mother studied him.
For a moment, I expected anger.
Instead Victor said, "Fair."
I hated how difficult he was making it to dislike him.
Forty minutes later, after Adrian confirmed Darius had left, we entered my apartment.
The place looked as if a storm had developed personal resentment against me.
My sofa cushions had been cut open.
Every drawer was emptied.
Books were ripped from shelves.
The framed photograph of my parents on my graduation table lay face-down beneath broken glass.
I stepped over it carefully.
My mother picked it up.
She stared at the image of herself from twenty years earlier.
"You kept this?"
I looked at her.
"I thought you were dead."
Her eyes closed.
I immediately regretted the cruelty, but I did not take it back.
Some wounds deserve to be seen before they can heal.
Victor moved through the room without touching anything.
"Where did you keep the music box?"
"Bedroom closet. Top shelf."
"So he knew exactly what he wanted."
My mother crouched beside the shattered pieces.
"Thomas never told me what was inside."
"You knew there was something?"
"He said if everything went wrong, the last gift would point you home."
"You couldn't have mentioned that on the phone?"
"I was trying to keep you alive."
"You have used that sentence to justify a lot."
She flinched again.
Victor quietly moved away, giving us space.
I knelt and began collecting pieces of red wood.
One fragment had a tiny hinge attached.
Another held part of the brass mechanism.
Then I noticed something silver beneath the radiator.
"Wait."
I reached under and pulled out a narrow metal cylinder no longer than my thumb.
My mother stared.
"What is that?"
Victor came closer.
I turned it over.
One end had a tiny port.
"A recorder?"
Adrian examined it.
"Old digital voice module. Custom housing."
My pulse quickened.
"Can you play it?"
"If Darius didn't damage the memory."
We took it back to Victor's penthouse.
By sunrise, one of Adrian's technicians had extracted an audio file.
The recording began with static.
Then my father's voice filled the study.
I had forgotten exactly how deep it was.
For eight years, I had been terrified that memory would eventually erase him.
It hadn't.
The first sound of his voice broke something open in me.
"Date, October fourteenth," he said. "Marco is here. Eleanor knows I'm recording."
A second man spoke.
Marco Castellano.
Victor's father.
"For God's sake, Tommy, stop talking like you're already dead."
My father laughed softly.
"People who think they're immortal usually die stupid."
Victor looked down.
His fingers tightened around the back of a chair.
The recording continued.
Marco said, "Sal has judges, cops, half the construction board. If I move openly, he'll know before I finish the sentence."
"Then don't move openly," my father replied. "Move legally."
Marco scoffed.
"You know what family I belong to?"
"Unfortunately."
A pause.
Then Marco laughed.
It was the first time I saw Victor smile at the sound of his father.
The expression disappeared quickly.
My father's voice returned.
"The red ledger is complete. Names, dates, payments, every order I could verify. But the book alone won't be enough if Sal claims Marco fabricated it to remove him. We need testimony. We need the recording from the gym."
My heart pounded.
Victor looked at me.
"What recording?"
My mother shook her head.
"I don't know."
On the audio, Marco lowered his voice.
"And Lily?"
My father answered immediately.
"She's out of this."
"She saw him."
"She's sixteen."
"Which means a jury will believe her."
My father's chair scraped violently.
"My daughter is not evidence."
I stopped breathing.
The words from the damaged storage card returned.
The red book is not evidence. The girl is.
But my father's recording said the opposite.
Marco continued, softer.
"Tommy, I'm not asking you to put her on a witness stand tomorrow. I'm telling you Sal knows she was in the building."
Silence.
Then my father whispered, "Then we move tonight."
"Where's the ledger?"
Another pause.
"Where your mother used to pray."
Victor's head snapped up.
Marco said nothing for several seconds.
Then, "St. Vincent's."
Victor closed his eyes.
My mother leaned forward.
"The church in the Bronx?"
"My grandmother funded the restoration," Victor said. "She had a private memorial chapel there."
On the recording, my father continued.
"Third saint from the altar. Left hand. Behind the stone."
My pulse accelerated.
There it was.
The location.
The original red ledger.
Then a sound came through the recording.
A door opening.
My father's voice changed instantly.
"Who are you?"
A woman's voice answered.
"I'm sorry to come this late."
Victor froze.
His face drained of color.
I looked at him.
"Who is that?"
He did not answer.
The recording continued.
Marco said, "What are you doing here?"
The woman replied, "Trying to keep both my sons alive."
Victor sat down slowly.
"That's my mother."
Celeste Castellano.
I knew almost nothing about her. Society pages described her as elegant, private, widowed young. She had disappeared from public life shortly after Marco's death and reportedly lived in Europe.
On the recording, Celeste sounded frightened.
"Salvatore knows you're building a case against him."
Marco cursed.
"How?"
"Because someone at the district attorney's office told him."
My father asked, "Who?"
"I don't know."
"Then how do you know?"
Celeste began crying.
"Because Sal came to me tonight. He said if Marco doesn't destroy the ledger, he'll kill Victor first. Then Matteo. Then every child carrying the Castellano name until Marco has no family left to protect."
Victor's face turned to stone.
I understood suddenly.
The danger had never belonged to one family.
My father had tried to protect me.
Marco had tried to protect Victor.
And Salvatore had learned that love was the easiest weapon to use against both men.
The recording cut out.
No more voices.
Just static.
I looked at Victor.
"Did you know?"
He shook his head.
"My mother told me my father died because rivals attacked a warehouse. She never mentioned a ledger. She never mentioned Thomas."
"Where is she now?"
"Lake Como, supposedly."
Adrian checked his phone.
"Not anymore."
Victor looked at him.
"What?"
"Her residence was emptied three weeks ago. Staff dismissed. Private plane flew to New York four days ago."
My mother stood.
"Salvatore is gathering everyone who knows."
Victor's jaw hardened.
"Or my mother is working with him."
"You heard the recording," I said.
"I heard fear. Fear makes people do things they spend the rest of their lives explaining."
The bitterness in his voice told me he was not only talking about Celeste.
He was talking about himself.
I watched him for a moment.
"You were twenty-four."
His eyes lifted.
"So were you, yesterday. Would you have stood aside if your family was threatened?"
I thought of my mother.
My father.
The giant knife coming toward Victor while every reasonable part of me screamed to run.
"No," I admitted.
Victor gave a tired smile.
"Then perhaps twenty-four is old enough to be guilty of what we choose."
"And young enough to become someone else."
The words left my mouth before I could stop them.
Something changed between us.
Not forgiveness.
Not trust.
But possibility.
Victor walked toward me.
"Why did you step in front of Darius?"
I looked down.
"I don't know."
"That's a lie."
"You're calling me a liar?"
"Gently."
I almost laughed.
He stopped close enough that I could see the tiny cut along his cheek.
"Everyone else ran," he said. "You didn't."
"Maybe I'm bad at self-preservation."
"Clearly."
"Maybe you looked alone."
His expression shifted.
That answer reached somewhere he kept guarded.
"I was," he said.
The honesty between us became suddenly dangerous.
I looked at his mouth.
He noticed.
For one suspended second, neither of us moved.
Then his hand lifted slowly to my face.
He gave me every chance to step away.
I didn't.
His thumb brushed my cheek.
"Lily."
My name sounded different in his voice.
I rose onto my toes.
Our mouths were inches apart when Adrian entered the study.
"Boss, sorry."
Victor closed his eyes.
I stepped backward so quickly I nearly hit the desk.
Adrian looked at the ceiling like a man reconsidering his career choices.
"This better be important," Victor said.
"Your uncle called a family council for tonight."
Victor's expression changed completely.
"Without me?"
"With everyone except you."
"Purpose?"
Adrian handed him a phone.
On the screen was a formal message sent to thirty-two people connected to the Castellano family.
By order of Salvatore Castellano, Victor Castellano is temporarily removed from leadership pending investigation into the disappearance of five loyal security men and the attempted murder of Nathan Hale.
I stared.
"He's blaming you."
Victor read the final line.
Then he laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because his uncle had finally stopped pretending.
"No," he said quietly. "He's replacing me."
My mother looked toward the audio recorder.
"Then he knows you're close to the ledger."
Victor picked up his jacket.
"Good."
I frowned.
"Good?"
His gray eyes went cold.
"A man who thinks he's already won becomes careless."
He turned toward Adrian.
"Get the car. We're going to St. Vincent's."
I reached for my coat.
Victor looked at me.
"No."
I raised an eyebrow.
He sighed.
"I knew I shouldn't have said that."
"You're learning."
For the first time since Darius Kane broke through the restaurant doors, Victor Castellano smiled fully.
It lasted less than a second.
May you like
But it was enough to make me realize something far more dangerous than any knife.
I was beginning to care whether he survived.
