Read Chapter 19: The Deposit Box

The bank’s marble floor echoed with every step, amplifying the sound of their guilt. Camille kept her hand pressed to the inside of her coat, where the key—her grandmother’s key—hung warm against her ribs. Beside her, Étienne walked with a measured calm that she recognized as a mask, his jaw tight beneath the polished surface.

“Fourth floor,” he murmured as the elevator doors slid shut. “Box 212.”

She nodded, not trusting her voice. The anonymous warning buzzed in her skull like a trapped fly. Someone else knows about the key. But here they were anyway, two families’ worth of secrets in their pockets, racing to uncover the truth before it was buried again.

The elevator chimed. They stepped into a hallway of brass and aged oak, and the attendant—a thin man with spectacles perched on a nose that had seen better decades—raised an eyebrow at their youth.

“May I help you?”

Camille produced the key with a steadiness she did not feel. “Box 212.”

The attendant’s gaze flicked to the key, then back to her face. Something moved behind his eyes—recognition, or suspicion, or both. But he said nothing, only led them down the corridor to a wall of gleaming boxes, their brass faces stamped with numbers worn smooth by years of fingers.

He inserted a master key, turned, and stepped back. “You’ll have privacy. Ring when you’re finished.”

The room was small, windowless, lit by a single amber bulb. A table stood in the center, scarred by decades of anxious hands. Étienne pulled the box from its slot and set it down with a reverence that made Camille’s throat tighten.

It was heavier than she expected. He lifted the lid.

Inside lay two items: a folded document, yellowed at the edges, sealed with red wax that had cracked into a spiderweb of age. And beneath it, an envelope. Cream-colored. Unmarked.

Except for their names, written in a flowing hand she recognized from the journal: *Camille and Étienne.*

Her breath caught. “It’s addressed to us.”

“Both of us.” Étienne’s voice was rough. “Before we even existed.”

He took the document first, unfolding it with deliberate care. Camille leaned in, her shoulder brushing his, and together they read the archaic legal French, the phrases winding like vines across the page.

*...the undersigned, Henri Delacroix and Paul Laroche, being of sound mind and in the spirit of enduring friendship, do hereby bequeath that the estates of Château Bellevue and Domaine Laroche shall be managed jointly, as one enterprise, with profits shared equally and lands worked in common, to the benefit of both families and their descendants in perpetuity...*

The date was 1961. Six months before the feud began.

Camille’s hand went to her mouth. “They were going to merge. Before everything.”

“My grandmother’s journal—” Étienne shook his head, staring at the paper. “She never said it was legal. She never said it was *signed.*”

“Our fathers must have known.” Camille’s voice was barely a whisper. “They buried it.”

Silence hung between them, thick as the dust in the air. For a moment, neither reached for the envelope. It sat there like a third presence, patient and waiting.

Finally, Étienne picked it up. He ran his thumb along the seal, then looked at her. “Together?”

She placed her hand over his. “Together.”

The wax cracked cleanly. Inside was a single sheet, covered in writing on both sides. The hand was different from the journal—more hurried, more desperate. The hand of a man near the end of something.

Camille read aloud, her voice faltering on the first lines:

*“If you are reading this, the truth has survived. I have no right to ask anything of you, but I will ask anyway. Understand that what I did, I did out of love, and that love cost me everything.”*

She paused. Étienne’s hand found hers, squeezing once before releasing.

*“My name was not always Moreau. I was born Antoine Delacroix, first son of the house. Half-brother to Henri, though he never knew it. Our father kept me at a distance, acknowledged in coin but never in name. I worked among the vines like any laborer, and I loved like any man. But the woman I loved chose another. She chose Paul Laroche.”*

Camille stopped. The words swam before her.

“Your father,” she breathed. “Antoine was your father’s *brother.*”

Étienne’s face had gone pale. He took the letter from her hands, reading on in silence for a moment, then continued aloud, his voice unsteady:

*“When she chose Paul, I could not bear to remain. I made a scene. I made a threat. I made a fool of myself, and the families paid for my pride with their friendship. Henri blamed Paul for stealing what he believed was *his* love. Paul blamed Henri for the rift I caused. Neither knew the truth: that the woman was never meant for either of them, and I was the one who destroyed them both.”*

Camille’s mind raced. “But then—the woman. Who was she?”

Étienne turned the page. The writing grew larger, the letters more rushed.

*“You seek to rebuild what we broke. Therefore I leave you this: the third parcel, which my father split from Bellevue in secret, to give me a share without giving me a name. It is yours by right, Camille, and yours by marriage, Étienne—a land that belongs to neither family but to both, as it should have always been.”*

He stopped.

“The third parcel.” Camille’s heart hammered. “The land Vanderhoeven is hunting for.”

Étienne nodded slowly, re-reading the final line. “He left it to us. Secretly. It’s been sitting there for sixty years, waiting for someone to claim it.”

“Waiting for us to end the feud,” she whispered.

A smile flickered across his face, fragile and fierce. “Your grandmother’s dream. She and mine—they wanted this all along.” He folded the letter carefully. “We have to tell our fathers. Show them this. End it.”

Camille opened her mouth to agree—

And froze.

Footsteps echoed from the corridor. Heavy. Deliberate. Coming toward the room.

Étienne’s head snapped up. He grabbed the box, shoved the documents and envelope back inside, and slid it into the wall. His hand pressed against the brass, silencing it.

The footsteps grew closer.

Camille’s gaze met his. The anonymous texter’s warning rang in her ears like a bell.

*Someone knows.*