Chapter 4 - The Discovery in the Attic
The warning in Julian’s study echoed in my mind for days, but if he expected it to deter me, he didn't understand how stubborn a person with mounting debt and a curious nature could be. By Saturday, the rest of the household staff had taken the afternoon off for a local market trip, leaving the vast expanse of Corsini House virtually empty. Martin was occupied with security checks on the eastern perimeter, which meant the upper floors were entirely unguarded.
I found myself drifting toward the heavy, brass-latched door at the end of the third-floor hallway—the one leading up to the sealed attic stairs.
Everyone on staff knew the attic was off-limits. Rumor had it that it was merely a storage space for old furniture and boxes from the previous generation, but given the mystery of the missing items, I couldn't shake the feeling that the answers weren't buried in the cellar or the security logs, but lingering right above our heads.
The latch gave way with a surprisingly quiet click.
I pushed the door open, stepping onto the steep wooden steps that led up into darkness. The air grew instantly colder, thick with the scent of dust, cedar, and old paper. Using the flashlight feature on my phone, I navigated the creaking floorboards, sweeping the beam across towering stacks of shrouded furniture, vintage trunks, and crates marked with fading black ink.
It looked ordinary at first glance—just a standard archive of a wealthy, secretive family. But as I walked deeper into the labyrinth of boxes, a faint sound caught my attention.
A rhythmic, metallic tapping. Tink... tink... tink.
I froze, holding my breath, my phone light trembling slightly in my hand. I followed the sound past a row of old wardrobes, squeezing through a narrow gap between a stack of rolled carpets and a draped canvas portrait.
Hidden behind a partition of discarded bookshelves was a small, windowless alcove that hadn't been cleared out.
And sitting on a low wooden stool in the center of the alcove was a young boy—no more than ten or eleven years old—wearing oversized clothes, meticulously tapping a small silver spoon against the side of an old metal tin.
I gasped, dropping my phone slightly.
May you like
The boy whipped his head around, his eyes wide with stark, absolute terror. In the pale beam of light, I saw the undeniable family resemblance in the sharp cut of his jaw and the dark curls framing his face.
It was a face that belonged in this house, yet according to every public record, Julian Corsini had no children, no siblings, and no living family left in Boston.
