part 5
PART 5 — The Lullaby with a Hidden Key
For three days, I healed in a house guarded like a fortress.
But grief does not respect locks.
It came at night.
When my daughter cried, I cried with her. When she slept, I stared at her and wondered how love could be this enormous and this terrifying. I had spent months believing I’d been unwanted. Abandoned. Foolish.
Now every memory had teeth.
On the fourth night, I found the video.
My old phone had been returned from the hospital. Its screen was cracked from when I’d dropped it during contractions. While searching for baby photos, I opened a hidden folder I didn’t remember creating.
There was only one file inside.
A video.
My thumb trembled as I pressed play.
Matteo appeared on the screen.
Alive.
His face was bruised. His breathing uneven. But his eyes—God, his eyes—were the same ones that used to soften whenever he looked at me.
“Emma,” he whispered, “if you’re seeing this, it means I didn’t make it back.”
A sound broke from me.
Dante, standing near the door, went still.
Matteo looked over his shoulder in the video, then back at the camera. “Listen carefully. I’m sorry I lied about my name. I thought it would keep you safe. I was wrong.”
His voice cracked.
“I loved you before I deserved to. I loved our baby before I ever heard her heartbeat. And if a man comes to you wearing my face but not my soul—run.”
My hand pressed against my mouth.
The video flickered.
“I hid the ledger where only our daughter could lead you. Not because she should carry this burden, but because no one would suspect something so small.”
Dante stepped closer. “What does that mean?”
Matteo smiled faintly, bleeding and desperate.
“Emma, remember the song.”
Then the video ended.
I stared at the black screen.
Dante’s voice was sharp. “What song?”
I could barely speak. “He used to sing to my stomach.”
“What song?”
I swallowed.
“‘You Are My Sunshine.’ But he always changed one line.”
Dante waited.
I closed my eyes, hearing Matteo’s voice in my tiny apartment kitchen.
You are my sunshine, my harbor light…
My harbor light.
The harbor.
My gaze snapped to the nursery window, where the Boston waterfront glittered beyond the rain.
“He rented a storage unit near the harbor,” I said. “For his tools. He said it was under a fake name.”
Dante was already moving. “No.”
I stood too quickly and pain ripped through me. “I’m going.”
“You just had surgery.”
“And that ledger may be the only reason my daughter survives.”
His face hardened. “You are not walking into a trap.”
I lifted my chin. “Then don’t let it be one.”
For a long moment, Dante stared at me.
Then, slowly, something like respect entered his eyes.
“You really did love him.”
“No,” I said, looking down at my daughter sleeping in the crib. “I still do.”
Dante nodded once.
By midnight, we were on the move.
May you like
And across Boston, men with guns began closing in on the same secret.
