Chapter 2: Don't Open the Envelope
PART 2 ⬇️
Vincent didn't look at the guests.
He didn't look at Vivian.
He looked at me.
"Open it," he said quietly.
My hands were shaking.
The locket had never left my neck in twenty-three years.
My mother made me promise.
She never told me why.
I pressed the small clasp.
Inside was a photograph.
A young woman.
Dark hair.
Holding a newborn wrapped in a white blanket.
Vincent made a sound I had never heard from a man like him.
Something between a breath and a name.
"That's my sister," he said.
"Elena."
The ballroom was completely still.
"She d*ed in a car accident," he continued.
"Twenty-eight years ago.
They told us the baby d*ed with her."
I couldn't speak.
He looked at me.
Really looked at me.
"You have her eyes."
Behind us, Vivian's voice cut through the silence — sharp and desperate.
"Vincent.
She's lying.
She found that locket somewhere.
She's a maid.
She's nobody."
Vincent turned slowly.
"How did you know the baby was a girl, Vivian?"
The color left her face.
"I…
I assumed—"
"I never said."
One of the guards stepped forward and placed a hand on Vivian's arm.
She didn't fight it.
But as they led her away, she turned back and looked at me with something I didn't expect.
Not anger.
Fear.
And she whispered four words only I could hear.
"Don't open the envelope."
---
What envelope?
And what did Vivian know about the night Elena d*ed?
The full truth is darker than anyone in that ballroom could have imagined.
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