Chapter 10 - THE BOX ON THE PORCH
I stared at the brown box.
It was small, about the size of a shoebox, wrapped in cheap brown paper with no return address.
Normally, I would have just picked it up, assuming it was a misdelivered package or a gift for my mother.
But after everything that happened with the Moretti family, my instincts screamed at me to be careful.
I nudged it gently with the toe of my shoe.
It was surprisingly heavy.
I picked it up, carrying it inside the quiet house. My mother was already asleep.
I set the box on the kitchen counter, grabbed a steak knife, and carefully slit the tape.
Inside was a layer of bubble wrap.
I pulled it back.
My heart stopped.
Sitting in the center of the box was a faded, olive-green military canvas coat.
It was stained with oil and smelled faintly of tobacco.
I didn't need to check the tags. I knew exactly who it belonged to.
It was my father’s coat.
The same coat he was wearing the night he disappeared fifteen years ago.
Beneath the coat was a small piece of hotel stationery.
Written in black marker was a single sentence:
Your father didn’t run away.
My hands began to shake.
For fifteen years, my mother and I believed my father, a low-level mechanic, had abandoned us to escape his gambling debts. We had spent over a decade paying the price for his supposed cowardice.
I reached into the pocket of the coat.
My fingers brushed against something hard and metallic.
I pulled it out.
It was a heavy, silver Zippo lighter.
But it wasn’t just a generic lighter. It was engraved with a crest.
A crest I had dusted every week in Luca Moretti’s private study.
The Moretti family crest.
I stared at the lighter, my mind spinning.
My father wasn’t just a mechanic.
He worked for Luca.
Suddenly, my phone buzzed on the counter, making me jump.
It was an unknown number.
I stared at the screen, my throat dry, before finally swiping to answer.
“Hello?” I whispered.
“Did you get the box, Claire?” a woman’s voice asked.
May you like
It was a voice I recognized immediately.
Vanessa.
