Chapter 3 - What the Music Box Held

The police were not called.

Natasha hated that fact, but she understood it when she saw Richard’s uncle’s unmarked cruiser idle at the far end of the street for nine minutes before driving away.

“Coincidence?” she asked.

Matteo stood beside her in the lobby.

“No.”

Richard had been removed from the apartment by Elena’s security team and released outside the building because, as Matteo put it, “I am not interested in giving his family a kidnapping allegation.”

Natasha looked at him. “How thoughtful.”

“I occasionally surprise people.”

“You haven’t surprised me in a good way yet.”

“That is fair.”

She entered her apartment with Elena first.

Nothing looked damaged. That was almost worse.

Richard had always preferred invisible violence: closed cupboards, straight frames, no obvious damage.

Her bedroom smelled faintly of his cologne.

The music box sat on the bed.

Its velvet lining had been ripped out.

Natasha stopped breathing.

“My father gave me that.”

Matteo stayed in the doorway. “Do you want me outside?”

“No.”

She approached slowly.

The box had played “Blue Moon.” Her father used to crank it badly on purpose until she threatened to throw it from the balcony. Five tiny swallows were carved into the lid.

The lining lay in pieces.

Under it was a shallow compartment.

Empty.

“No,” Natasha whispered.

She turned. “He took it.”

Elena checked the security report. “Our team searched him.”

“And?”

“No papers. No drive. Nothing.”

Natasha touched the torn velvet. “Then it was already empty.”

Matteo walked closer. “Maybe.”

“You think I removed something?”

“I think Adrian was careful.”

“My father was an accountant.”

“For the Castellano Foundation.”

Her head snapped up.

“What?”

“You didn’t know?”

“He was an independent auditor.”

“He was hired to audit the foundation.”

“By whom?”

“Dr. Vittorio Castellano. Richard’s father.”

Natasha sat on the edge of the bed.

Richard’s father had died before she and Richard became engaged. She had met him only twice. Formal dinners. Heavy gold watch. Eyes that never smiled.

“He knew who I was.”

“Yes.”

“And Richard definitely knew.”

“Yes.”

The betrayal hit differently now. Not like a blow. Like a floor disappearing.

“All six years.”

“I cannot prove that.”

“But you believe it.”

“Yes.”

Natasha stared at the box.

“Why would my father hide evidence in something he gave a fourteen-year-old?”

“You were twenty-three when he died.”

She looked at Matteo.

He frowned. “What?”

“He gave this to me when I was fourteen.”

That changed something.

Matteo picked up the lid without touching the damaged interior. “Was it always this heavy?”

“Yes.”

“Did he ever repair it?”

“Once. After my mother died. The hinge broke.”

“When?”

“About a month before his accident.”

Matteo looked at Elena.

She nodded and photographed the box from every angle.

Natasha said, “What are you thinking?”

“That the compartment may not be the hiding place.”

He pointed at the five carved swallows.

One bird’s wing sat a fraction higher than the others.

Natasha had seen that lid thousands of times. She had never noticed.

“May I?”

She hesitated, then handed it to him.

Matteo pressed the raised wing.

Nothing happened.

He turned the lid sideways. “There’s a seam.”

Elena brought a thin tool from her security kit.

Within thirty seconds, a narrow panel slid free.

Inside was a microSD card wrapped in wax paper.

Natasha stared.

Matteo did not touch it.

Neither did Elena.

“It’s yours,” he said.

Natasha laughed once, almost angrily. “Now you respect ownership?”

“I am trying to learn.”

She picked up the card.

It weighed almost nothing.

Nine years of questions in the center of her palm.

“Can we open it?”

“Not on any device connected to your network.”

“Why?”

“Because if Adrian was hiding this from the Castellanos, assume they built protections against finding it.”

Natasha closed her fist.

“Where?”

“I have a secure office.”

“No.”

Matteo accepted that.

“Elena?”

“My firm has an offline forensic machine,” Elena said. “Independent from Mr. Rossi’s systems.”

Natasha nodded. “There.”

They drove to Elena’s security office near Coral Gables.

At 1:17 a.m., a forensic technician named Dev Malik inserted the card into a read-only adapter.

“Encrypted,” he said.

Natasha’s hope fell.

“With an old VeraCrypt container. Strong password, weak hint.”

“What hint?”

Dev turned the monitor.

Five birds fly where the moon is blue.

Natasha started crying.

Not dramatically. No sob. Just tears she could not stop.

Matteo looked away.

Elena handed her tissues.

“My mother sang ‘Blue Moon’ when she cooked,” Natasha said. “And she called us the flock.”

Dev asked gently, “Does that suggest a password?”

Natasha wiped her face.

Five birds.

There had been three family members.

Unless the flock included two others.

She remembered a childhood phrase.

“Mama used to say, ‘Five Vosses at the table.’”

Matteo frowned. “There were five?”

“My grandparents. They died before her.”

She typed the first names in birth order.

No.

She tried surnames.

No.

Then she remembered her father’s habit of writing birthdays backward because “Europeans do dates properly.”

She entered five dates separated by periods.

The drive opened.

Folders appeared.

CASTELLANO FOUNDATION.

PORT ACCOUNTS.

PATIENT TRANSFERS.

ROSSI.

Natasha looked at Matteo.

His face became unreadable.

“You’re in here.”

“Yes.”

“You knew you would be.”

“I suspected.”

“Why?”

He looked at the folder with his name.

“Because my brother worked with Vittorio Castellano.”

Natasha’s voice thinned. “Your brother?”

“Luca.”

“What did they do?”

Matteo did not answer quickly enough.

She stepped back.

“Tell me.”

“My family moved money through the foundation.”

“What kind of money?”

“Illegal money.”

“And my father found it.”

“Yes.”

“So you didn’t help him because you were some noble protector.”

“No.”

“You helped him because he had evidence against your family.”

“At first.”

The words cut deeper because he did not defend himself.

Dev said quietly, “There’s another file.”

A video.

Dated two days before Adrian Voss died.

Natasha clicked it.

Her father appeared on-screen.

Older. Frightened.

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He looked directly into the camera.

“Tasha,” he said. “If you’re watching this, then I failed to get home.”