LOVING YOU WAS HIS REVENGE

CHAPTER 4: The Music Box

I waited until nightfall.

Victor always had dinner meetings on Wednesdays, and Emmanuel would drive him to whatever restaurant or club his schedule demanded. The house would be empty from seven until midnight. Five hours. More than enough time.

Mirabel drove me. She parked two streets away from the house, her hands tight on the wheel.

"This is a terrible idea," she said.

"You said that three times already."

"Because it is true three times over. What if he comes home early? What if that woman is there?"

"Tonia does not live there." I unbuckled my seat belt. "I still have my key. I will be in and out in twenty minutes."

"Text me when you are inside. And text me when you are leaving. If I do not hear from you in thirty minutes, I am coming in."

"Okay."

"Evelyn." Mirabel caught my arm. "Be careful."

I squeezed her hand and stepped out of the car.

The street was quiet, all the houses glowing with warm light behind closed curtains. The Casmir house stood tall and dark at the end of the lane. No cars in the driveway. No lights in the windows. Empty, just as I hoped.

My key still worked. I stepped inside and the alarm beeped. I punched in the code, and silence returned.

The house smelled the same. Clean, expensive, faintly of Victor's cologne lingering in the air. I moved quickly through the hallway, past the kitchen, past the living room where I used to curl up on the sofa and read while Victor worked.

My old things were in the spare room on the third floor. Victor never used that room. He let me store whatever I wanted there when we first married, and I filled it with boxes from my father's house, books, photo albums, and the small collection of my mother's belongings that I could not let go of.

I climbed the stairs two at a time, my heart hammering. The spare room door was slightly open, which was strange. I always kept it closed.

I pushed it open and stopped.

The room was empty.

Not empty as if someone had tidied it. Empty as in everything was gone. My boxes, my books, my mother's things. The shelves were bare. The floor was clean. Nothing remained.

My breath caught. I stepped inside, turning in a slow circle, searching for anything. A stray photo, a forgotten item, anything at all. But the room had been cleared completely.

"No," I whispered. "No, no, no."

The music box. My mother's music box with whatever truth my father hid inside it. Gone.

I pulled out my phone to text Mirabel, and the hallway light clicked on behind me.

"Looking for something?"

I spun around. Victor stood at the top of the stairs, his suit jacket gone, his shirt unbuttoned at the collar. He leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, watching me the way a cat watches a mouse that wandered back into the trap.

"Where are my things?" I demanded.

"I donated them. You left. I cleared out what you left behind."

"Those were my mother's belongings, Victor."

"They were boxes of old junk taking up space in my house."

I stepped toward him. "There was a music box. Blue and gold, with a ballerina inside. Where is it?"

Something shifted in his expression. "Why do you want it?"

"Because it belonged to my mother, and you had no right to throw it away."

"I did not throw it away. I said I donated everything. Go check the charity shops if you want it so badly."

He was lying. The way his eyes moved slightly to the left, the way his jaw tightened. He was lying, and we both knew it.

"Give me back my mother's music box, Victor."

"You do not give orders in this house. You lost that privilege when you walked out."

"I walked out because you told me our entire marriage was a business deal."

"And yet here you are, back again." He tilted his head. "What is really going on, Evelyn? What is in that music box?"

"Memories. That is all."

He pushed off the wall and walked toward me. I stood my ground. He stopped close enough that I could smell his cologne, see the sharp lines of his face, the coldness in his dark eyes.

"You are a terrible liar," he said quietly. "You always were."

"And you are a terrible husband. But I suppose you were never really trying."

His mouth twitched. Not a smile, but close. "Go home, Evelyn. Wherever home is now."

He turned and walked toward the stairs. I followed him.

"Victor. My father did not kill himself."

He stopped. His shoulders went rigid, and he stood very still for three full seconds before he turned around.

"What did you say?"

"He was pushed. Someone was on that rooftop with him. And I am going to find out who."

Victor's face went through something I could not quite read. Surprise, confusion, and then something darker. His voice dropped low, barely above a whisper.

"Who told you this?"

"Does it matter?"

He crossed the distance between us in two strides and grabbed my shoulders. Not hard enough to hurt, but firm enough that I could not move.

"Who told you this, Evelyn? Answer me."

"Let go of me."

"This is not a game. If someone is filling your head with nonsense..."

"It is not nonsense. I have proof." I should not have said that. The moment the words left my mouth, I saw his eyes change. Something dangerous surfaced behind them, and his grip tightened.

"What proof?"

I said nothing.

"Evelyn." His voice was low, controlled, but I could hear something underneath it. Something that almost sounded like fear. "If you have something, you need to give it to me. Right now."

"Why? So you can destroy it like you destroyed everything else my father left behind?"

His hands dropped from my shoulders. He took a step back, and for the first time since I had known him, Victor Casmir looked shaken.

"You have no idea what you are getting into," he said. "Whatever you think you know, stop. Walk away. Take the money from the divorce and disappear."

"Is that a threat?"

"It is a warning." He turned away and started down the stairs. Halfway down, he paused and said over his shoulder, "Stay away from my uncle, Evelyn. I mean it."

I stood alone in the dark hallway, my heart pounding. He mentioned Benjamin before I did. He knew. He already knew something about his uncle, and he was afraid.

Victor Casmir, the man who never showed emotion, was afraid.

And as I stood there trying to understand what that meant, my phone buzzed with a message from Mirabel: "Someone just pulled into the driveway. A black car. Not Victor's. Get out now.”