Chapter 2 - THE SECOND RING
I looked again.
Then a third time.
“No.”
Maso leaned against the workbench.
“What?”
“This isn't mine.”
Leah moved closer.
“It looks exactly like yours.”
“To you.”
I wiped the blood carefully from the inner band with a cotton swab.
My father had taught me that jewelry remembered its maker.
Every craftsman left tiny habits behind—how deeply he cut a groove, how he polished an edge, how he joined metal where ordinary eyes would never look.
My wedding ring had been made in this shop.
By my father.
And my father had never engraved straight across a curved band. He angled his letters slightly toward the wearer.
The engraving inside this ring was perfectly level.
I turned on the magnifying lamp.
There were three tiny characters beside the hallmark.
C.M.17.
Leah whispered, “Camila Marino?”
“Maybe.”
Maso's face changed.
“What happened after I left?” I asked.
He hesitated.
“Maso.”
“Camila disappeared.”
My hand stopped.
“What do you mean disappeared?”
“About twenty minutes after you left the house, Alessandro took her into his study. There was an argument. I heard glass break.”
“And?”
“Then the security cameras on the west hall went dark for eleven minutes.”
Leah folded her arms. “Convenient.”
“When they came back,” Maso continued, “Camila was gone.”
“And Alessandro?”
“Bleeding.”
The room seemed to shrink.
“Where?”
“His hand.”
I stared at the blood on the ring.
“You thought this was his?”
“I don't know whose it is.”
“Where did you find it?”
Maso looked uncomfortable.
“Outside your father's shop.”
That frightened me more than anything else he'd said.
“Here?”
“In the alley. Six this morning.”
Leah immediately went to the window.
“Someone followed Adriana.”
“Or someone wanted me to find it,” Maso said.
I lifted the ring again.
Under the loupe, another detail appeared.
A shallow line ran around the inner circumference.
A seam.
My pulse jumped.
“Get me the fine blade.”
Maso handed me the smallest tool from my father's case.
I worked the tip beneath the seam.
The inner band shifted.
Leah stared.
“Wedding rings aren't supposed to open, right?”
“Not usually.”
With careful pressure, a paper-thin strip of gold lifted away.
Hidden beneath it was a narrow cavity.
Inside lay something rolled tighter than thread.
I used tweezers.
It wasn't paper.
It was a fragment of an old photograph.
A woman's eye.
Dark hair.
Part of a man's shoulder.
And behind them, unmistakable even in the tiny image, was my father's jewelry shop.
Maso swore quietly.
I turned the fragment over.
Three numbers were written on the back.
Leah said, “Locker?”
“Safe deposit box?”
“Hotel room?” Maso suggested.
I stared at the woman's visible eye.
Something about it bothered me.
Not recognition exactly.
Memory.
I crossed to an old cabinet and pulled out the boxes my father had left behind.
Receipts.
Repair envelopes.
Photographs of custom pieces.
He documented everything.
After twenty minutes, I found a faded ledger from seventeen years earlier.
Order 417.
My breath caught.
Customer: Elena Marino.
Item: gold identification bracelet.
Special engraving.
I looked at Maso.
“Marino.”
“Camila's family.”
The original order envelope was still tucked behind the page.
Inside was a photograph.
This time the woman's entire face was visible.
She stood beside my father.
Young.
Beautiful.
Terrified.
On her wrist was the same kind of bruise I had seen on Camila.
Leah slowly sat down.
“That's not a coincidence.”
There was writing on the photograph.
My father's handwriting.
ELENA — KEEP ORIGINAL SAFE.
Underneath it:
A.R. MUST NEVER FIND OUT.
My stomach turned.
Alessandro Rossi.
A.R.
Maso saw where my mind had gone.
“No.”
“You don't know that.”
“I've known Alessandro since we were boys.”
“And I slept beside him for seven years.”
Neither of us had an answer to that.
I studied the bracelet pictured on Elena's wrist.
A slim gold chain with an oval plate.
My father had drawn a tiny star beside it.
I remembered that star.
He used it to mark hollow pieces.
Pieces containing hidden compartments.
“Where is the bracelet?” I whispered.
Maso's phone vibrated.
He looked at the screen, then at me.
“Alessandro wants you back at the house.”
“No.”
“He says it's about Camila.”
“Then he can come here.”
“He can't.”
“Why?”
Maso swallowed.
“Because someone tried to kill him forty minutes ago.”
Leah stood.
“What?”
“He was leaving the family chapel. Shot missed his chest by inches.”
I hated myself for how quickly fear cut through my anger.
“Is he hurt?”
“No.”
“Then he can still walk.”
Maso almost smiled.
Almost.
Then I noticed something beneath his coat sleeve.
Blood.
“Maso.”
He looked down too late.
Leah crossed the room and grabbed his wrist.
“You're bleeding.”
“It's nothing.”
She pushed his sleeve up.
A fresh cut crossed his forearm.
And fastened around his wrist, partly hidden beneath his cuff, was a thin gold bracelet.
Oval plate.
Tiny engraved star.
The bracelet from my father's photograph.
I stared at him.
“Maso.”
His face went pale.
“Where did you get that?”
He didn't answer.
“Maso, where did you get Elena Marino's bracelet?”
His voice dropped.
“Camila gave it to me.”
“When?”
“Last night.”
“Before she disappeared?”
He looked straight at me.
“No.”
May you like
My skin went cold.
“She gave it to me this morning.”
