Chapter 3 - THE BOY WHO KNEW MY HOUSEI met Noah Cole at a laundromat three days later.
Not because Tessa introduced us.
Because I followed her.
I had never followed an employee before.
But after Victor's warning, curiosity became something sharper.
Something close to obsession.
At 6:15 p.m., Tessa left my estate.
Instead of taking the train, she walked six blocks south.
She entered a laundromat carrying two bags of clothes.
Ten minutes later, the door opened again.
Two boys ran in.
The older one was Noah.
The younger one was Eli.
They hugged Tessa before looking toward me.
Noah saw me first.
His face changed instantly.
He grabbed Eli's shoulder.
“That's him.”
Tessa turned.
Her expression collapsed.
“Mr. Rossi?”
I stepped inside.
“I wanted to meet them.”
“You can't.”
“Why?”
“Because they don't know who you are.”
Noah stared at me.
“Yes, I do.”
I looked at him.
“How?”
He pointed toward my coat.
“You wear the same watch in the picture.”
“What picture?”
He took out one of his notebooks.
My stomach tightened.
He opened it.
There was a drawing of me standing outside my own house.
I wasn't alone.
Victor stood beside me.
But the detail that caught my attention wasn't Victor.
It was the folder in his hand.
“Where did you see this?”
Noah shook his head.
“My mom told me not to talk about it.”
“Your mother?”
“She wrote it down before she died.”
Tessa looked terrified.
“Noah.”
He stopped.
I crouched in front of him.
“What did your mother write?”
“She said your house had a hidden room.”
Tessa closed her eyes.
I stood.
“There is no hidden room.”
Noah looked at me.
“Yes, there is.”
“Where?”
He pointed toward my estate.
“Behind the library.”
I felt a strange pressure in my chest.
There was no hidden room.
Not on any official floor plan.
But an old part of the estate had been renovated before I purchased it.
I had never cared enough to inspect the original blueprints.
I looked at Tessa.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because I didn't know if your family was involved.”
“My family?”
She nodded.
“My mother worked for someone before she worked here.”
“Who?”
She hesitated.
“Your father.”
That stopped me.
My father had been dead for fourteen years.
Tessa looked at the floor.
“Your father hired my mother.”
“For what?”
“Housekeeping.”
I frowned.
“That doesn't make sense.”
“She was terrified of him.”
My jaw tightened.
“My father wasn't a cruel man.”
“I didn't say he was.”
She looked at me.
“I said she was afraid of him.”
Those were different things.
That night, I ordered the original estate blueprints from the city archive.
There it was.
A room.
Small.
Unlisted on the current plans.
Behind the library.
The room had been sealed fifty-one years ago.
I went there with Marcus.
We removed a section of wood paneling.
Behind it was brick.
Solid.
No door.
No room.
Just an old wall.
Marcus frowned.
“Dead end.”
I ran my hand over the bricks.
Then stopped.
One was newer than the others.
“Get a crowbar.”
Marcus looked at me.
“Sir?”
“Do it.”
The brick came out.
Behind it was a narrow cavity.
Inside sat a rusted metal box.
I stared at it.
No one spoke.
Marcus pulled it free.
There was a lock.
I couldn't open it.
Then I noticed something scratched into the lid.
Three letters.
T.C.
Tessa Cole.
My pulse jumped.
“How the hell…”
Marcus interrupted.
“Sir.”
He pointed down.
A thin strip of black fabric was caught beneath the box.
I picked it up.
It was torn from a coat.
And attached to it was a small silver thread.
I remembered Victor's suit.
But I refused to jump to conclusions.
We carried the box into the library.
At midnight, I called Tessa.
She arrived twenty minutes later.
When she saw the box, she stopped breathing.
“My mother had one like that.”
“You've seen it before?”
“No.”
“But you know what it is.”
She looked at the initials.
Then whispered:
“She said your father gave it to her.”
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
“Open it.”
“I don't have the key.”
I turned the box over.
There was a tiny keyhole.
Then Noah spoke.
“I know where the key is.”
We all turned.
“Where?”
“In Mom's Bible.”
The boys lived in a cramped apartment above a closed bakery.
Tessa's hands shook as she opened a cardboard box.
Inside was an old family Bible.
Noah flipped through it.
Nothing.
Then he turned it upside down.
A small brass key fell from between the pages.
Tessa stared at it.
I took it.
The key fit the box.
Inside were photographs.
Letters.
And a bank ledger.
The photographs showed my father.
My father standing beside Tessa's mother.
My father handing her an envelope.
My father arguing with a younger Victor Hale.
And the final photograph made the room go silent.
Victor was holding a newborn baby.
On the back, someone had written:
THE MONEY WAS NEVER HIS.
I looked at Tessa.
Her face had gone white.
“Whose baby?”
She didn't answer.
I turned the photograph over again.
At the bottom, beneath the handwriting, was a date.
Exactly eleven years earlier.
The year Noah was born.
Then I saw something else.
The ledger listed monthly payments.
Huge amounts.
All transferred from a Rossi family account.
And every payment had been authorized by one person.
Victor Hale.
I looked toward Tessa.
“Why would my company be paying your mother?”
She whispered the words I had been trying not to hear.
“Because your father left us something.”
“What?”
She looked at the photograph.
“Protection.”
Then someone knocked on the apartment door.
Three slow knocks.
Noah's face drained of color.
“That's him.”
The knocking came again.
This time harder.
Tessa grabbed the box.
“We have to run.”
And from the hallway came a calm male voice.
“Tessa.”
May you like
Victor Hale.
“We need to talk.”
Related Stories
