Chapter 7
Later that evening, long after the visiting attorneys had departed and the estate had settled into a heavy, artificial stillness, Marcus made his way up to the servants' quarters on the top floor. The hallway was dimly lit by flickering wall sconces, casting long, distorted shadows across the faded wallpaper. He stopped outside Martha’s room and tapped three times softly on the wooden panel.
The door opened immediately. Martha stood there, her eyes wide with apprehension, but she stepped aside to let the head of security enter the small, warmly lit room. Sitting on the edge of the modest cot was Lily, holding the colorful small ball in her lap.
Marcus closed the door quietly and locked it from the inside. He looked down at Lily, noticing the dark circles under her eyes and the pale, drawn expression on her face.
"You were in the study today," Marcus stated quietly, not as an accusation, but as a statement of fact.
Lily looked up, her breath catching in her throat. She gripped the ball tighter, instinctively trying to shield it. "I... I didn't mean to. The door was open. I just wanted to find something about my mother."
"You took an enormous risk," Marcus said, his voice softening as he knelt down to eye level with the young girl. "Julian is desperate. If he had found you under that desk, he wouldn't have just pinned your hand with his shoe. He would have sent you away to a boarding school three states over where no one would ever find you."
"I found this," Lily whispered, opening her palm to reveal the tiny, tarnished brass key she had extracted from the ball.
Marcus stared at the key, his eyebrows lifting in genuine surprise. He reached out and gently picked it up, examining the intricate notches under the dim light of the bedside lamp. "Where did you get this?"
"It was hidden inside the ball," Lily explained earnestly. "My mother gave me the ball before she... before she went away. She told me to keep it safe, no matter what Mr. Julian said."
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Martha gasped, pressing her hands to her mouth. "That ball... it was Elena’s favorite toy when she was a child. Her father had it custom-made for her. I thought Julian threw all her childhood belongings into the furnace years ago."
Marcus turned the key over in his calloused fingers, a realization dawning in his sharp eyes. "This isn't just an antique key. It’s a skeleton key designed for the master locks of the original 19th-century wing before the modern renovations were completed. There is only one door in the entire estate that still uses this exact locking mechanism—the old estate vault located beneath the wine cellar."
