Chapter 3: The Jewelry Box Secret
1348words
My room was the smallest in the east wing, deliberately positioned far from the family quarters. Another of Victoria's subtle cruelties—physical isolation to match my emotional exile.
I locked the door behind me and leaned against it, exhaling a breath I felt I'd been holding all evening. The moonlight streaming through my window illuminated the room in silver-blue shadows, casting an ethereal glow on my mother's jewelry box sitting atop my dresser.
The box was my most treasured possession—rosewood with mother-of-pearl inlay, the only thing I had left of her. Victoria had tried countless times to "relocate" it to Isolde's room, claiming my stepsister would "do it justice." Tonight, I felt drawn to it with unusual urgency.
I ran my fingers over the intricate floral pattern before lifting the lid. The familiar melody of Debussy's "Clair de Lune" filled the room—a lullaby from my childhood, from when my mother would brush my hair and tell me stories of her dreams.
"One day, my little Sera," she would say, "you'll create beautiful things that make people feel beautiful wearing them."
The jewelry inside was modest compared to Victoria's collection—a strand of pearls, a few silver brooches, a garnet ring. I lifted the velvet lining, accessing the hidden compartment my mother had shown me years ago. Inside lay her sketchbook of dress designs, untouched since her death.
But tonight, as I removed the sketchbook, I noticed something else—the edge of a document I'd never seen before. I pulled it out carefully.
It was a deed. A property deed for an apartment in Milan, Italy.
"What?" I whispered to the empty room.
My hands trembled as I examined the document. The apartment was purchased in my mother's maiden name six months before her death. She had never mentioned it, never hinted at any connection to Milan beyond her stories of visiting as a young woman.
Beneath the deed lay a small leather-bound ledger. I opened it, finding page after page of numbers, dates, company names—some circled in red ink with my father's initials beside them.
"FW transfer complete. Cayman route. 500k."
"Zurich account cleared. FW signature confirmed."
"Whitestone Holdings—shell company established."
My breath caught. These were financial records—records that looked suspiciously like documentation of money laundering. My father's money laundering.
I flipped through more pages, finding notes in my mother's handwriting: "Evidence growing. Must protect Seraphina."
The last entry, dated just days before her fatal "accident," read: "Milan apartment secured in my name only. S will have escape if needed. Must tell her when she's old enough."
But she never had the chance.
A cold realization washed over me. My mother hadn't just died—she had been preparing to leave. To take me with her. Had she confronted my father? Had her "accident" truly been accidental?
The door handle jiggled suddenly, followed by Victoria's sharp voice.
"Seraphina? Why is this door locked? Open it at once!"
I hastily shoved the documents back into the secret compartment, but in my panic, the ledger slipped from my hands, landing open on the floor just as Victoria used her master key to enter.
Her eyes darted from my face to the jewelry box to the fallen ledger.
"What are you doing?" she demanded, sweeping into the room in her silk dressing gown.
"Nothing that concerns you," I replied, reaching for the ledger.
Victoria was faster. She snatched it up, her eyes widening as she scanned the pages.
"Where did you get this?" Her voice had lost its usual imperious tone, replaced by something I'd never heard before—fear.
"It was my mother's."
"Your mother had no business—" She stopped herself, composing her features. "This is your father's private business information. You have no right to it."
She reached for the jewelry box. "I'll be taking this to your father."
Something snapped inside me. After years of submission, after tonight's humiliation, after discovering my mother's secrets—I'd had enough.
"No." I stepped between her and the dresser. "You won't."
Victoria's eyes narrowed to slits. "What did you say to me?"
"I said no. This was my mother's. It belongs to me."
Victoria's face contorted with rage. She raised her hand as if to strike me, then seemed to think better of it. "Everything in this house belongs to your father, you ungrateful child. Including you." She attempted to push past me, her manicured nails digging into my arm. "You forget your place. You are nothing. Less than nothing."
I stood my ground. "Touch it, and I'll tell everyone what I found inside."
Her hand froze mid-reach. "You wouldn't dare."
"Wouldn't I? After tonight, what do I have to lose?"
The standoff might have continued indefinitely if my father hadn't appeared in the doorway, his evening clothes rumpled, smelling of brandy and cigars.
"What is the meaning of this commotion?" he demanded.
Victoria immediately adopted her victim pose. "Frederick, she's threatening me. And she's stolen your private papers."
My father's gaze fell on the ledger in Victoria's hand, and his florid face paled.
"Where did you get that?" he asked, his voice dangerously quiet.
"From Mother's jewelry box. Along with the deed to an apartment in Milan I never knew existed."
Something flashed in his eyes—recognition, then calculation.
"Victoria, leave us," he said.
"But Frederick—"
"Now."
She departed with a venomous glance in my direction.
My father closed the door and approached me slowly, like one might approach a cornered animal.
"Seraphina," he said, his tone artificially gentle, "you've had a difficult evening. You're upset and confused."
"I'm not confused. Mother was collecting evidence against you. She was planning to leave—to take me away."
"Your mother was unwell toward the end. Paranoid. Imagining conspiracies."
"Was her death an accident?" I asked bluntly.
His face hardened. "Be very careful, daughter."
"Or what? You'll arrange an accident for me too?"
He seized my arm, fingers digging painfully into my flesh. "Listen carefully. You will surrender that box and everything in it. You will never speak of this again. And you will behave appropriately during your sister's engagement period."
"Or?"
"Or I'll send you to the Blackwood Sanitarium for 'nervous exhaustion.'" His voice dropped to a whisper, his face inches from mine. "Do you know what they do to difficult young women there, Seraphina? The treatments? The restraints? The special therapies for hysterical females?" His smile was terrifying in its gentleness. "Many troubled young women enter those doors. Some never emerge at all."
He released me, holding out his hand for the ledger. "Your choice."
I handed it over, my mind racing. He took the jewelry box as well, tucking it under his arm.
"Remember, Seraphina—one word of this to anyone, and you'll regret it."
After he left, I sat on my bed, trembling not with fear but with rage. I pulled Cassian's card from my pocket, staring at the number on the back.
It was nearly midnight, but I didn't care. I went to the telephone in the hallway alcove and dialed.
He answered on the third ring. "Cassian Vexley."
"It's Seraphina Whitestone." My voice was steady despite everything. "About Milan—how soon could I leave?"
There was a brief pause. "What's happened?"
"Everything. Nothing. I just need to leave. Immediately."
Another pause. "I can arrange it. But Seraphina, are you in danger?"
I glanced down the dark hallway toward my father's study, where a light still burned.
"Yes," I whispered. "I think I am."
"Then I'll help you," he said, his voice resolute. "Not because you need rescuing, but because the world needs to see who you really are."
As I hung up the phone, I caught a movement at the end of the hall—Isolde, watching me with an unreadable expression.
Had she heard? How much did she know?
I returned to my room, locking the door behind me. Tomorrow, everything would change. I just had to survive tonight.
