Chapter 35 DAUGHTER OF DELUCA
SOFIA
I almost broke my leg bones.
“God!” I covered my mouth immediately so I don't make an audible sound.
Roberto was fast asleep in the bedroom.
I groaned in a muffled tone as I sat on the floor. At least I had managed to move the bathtub a little bit.
“Oh, God, what was I thinking that I could move such big tub all alone without feeling a thing?”
It was definitely a bad idea to try.
Now it was more obvious, that space underneath. Something was definitely there and I was keein in finding out what it was.
Maybe I am just about tonstumble on some Mafia treasure. I remember Mother had always told him about those but I never believed it.
‘You see the very day I got married to your husband, I knew I was marrying into wealth and not just any kind, one that never runs dry cause they have a chest box!!” She said as she tried tucking me to sleep one moonlit night.
“Chest box?” I wondered.
Why that? Was Dad a pirate or ….what exactly does she mean by that?
“I know you are thinking about what I said, my little girl,” she caressed my cheeks with my hands.
I nodded in agreement to her question….”When I say a chest box, I mean, a private treasure store where they keep all sort of valuables. Every Mafia has it. It's like a fallback plan as I have head it on the streets of the city,” she explained.
“Hmmmmm…” I mumbled.
“So Papa has a chest box?” I asked out of curiosity.
“Definitely but there is just one problem,” she added…
“Only Papa know where his chest box is and only him can tell another about its whereabouts…”
Funny enough, I was never interested in knowing. Probably because I never liked my Papa.
After all, I was an abomination in his residence and my time is limited in his gracious sight.
I stood in the bathroom for about a minute or two, staring at the secret tiked compartment underneath the bath tub.
I opened the door slightly and pee to see if Roberto was still sleeping and right there he was, sonring it all out.
“He must really be so tired to be this deep asleep,” I said to myself.
I shut the door back gently and with my heart racing so fast, I walked towards the tub.
“I wonder what is in there,” I muttered as I moved closer..
I carried the first tile off carefully then the second an third one gently after. I kept going and going up until the sixth tile.
I held my breath immediately. My eyes widening in utmost shock at the first thing I saw…
A finger and a gun beside it!!!!
“This is no goddamn treasure!!” the voice in my head screamed out.
I wonder whose finger those are but that wasn't all that was there. There was a pile of documents also sealed with a red tape.
I remember watching this in the movies back at home. Fhsse were the most confidential files containing secret information. Papa was always playing those movies in the sitting room.
Mama said I shouldn't watch that it was all about violence and crime. Of course I knew why Papa was drawn to those kind of movies. He was a violent man on his own.
But I sneak to watch them sometimes. The background music and sounds were always calling unto me so I couldn't just ignore and not see for myself.
I managed to get one of the documents open and it was a bunch of numbers. I couldn't comprehend what it meant cause they were just too much for me.
I tried making sense out of it but my eyes got weary and I closed it immediately.
My eyes darted to the bunch of dollars and gold bars sitting beside the pile of document.
Mother was right. Thus has to be Roberto chest box but why the bathroom and what are these documents and why are they kept here?
Hold on.
“What if I just take these pictures and send them to Papa? Since they aren't making sense to me either..at least he would appreciate that Indid something worthy for him” I thought to myself.
But then I remembered my phone isn't with me but on the bed right beside Roberto.
I checked the door once again to see if Roberto was asleep.
His hands were on my space and the tip of his fingers almost touching the edge of my phone by the shelf beside the bed.
I sighed….”No way I am taking that risk of going to get my phone. He is definitely going to catch me!!” I said to myself.
I walked back inside to check the secret stash once again..
It was indeed a lot of money but I wasn't after that. There was something about those documents that was really suspicious.
There were duplicate copies of each…multiplication duplicate copies for no reason.
I kept opening them all to see if I would stumble on anything different but it was onky a repetition.
“Why would Roberto have a document full of bunch of random numbers and also in hundreds of copies??” I asked myself.
I took the gun and flashed it before my very eyes. It was clean md quite heavy.
“Wow…” I blurted. I had always wanted to hold one all my life. Papa never allowed me to not even Diego gave me the privilege of holding a gun despite the fact that he always walked around with one.
It was at that point, my eyes stumbled on another document just by the sir of the gold bar.
This one was smaller in size and it's color was a different shade of brown, fro the rest.
My breath became heavy as I kept staring. The fear. That separate file seem to hold a lot of mystery just by the way it is placed.
I looked back at the door and blinked….”Lord, please don't let me get caught. Roberto would kill me.”
Maybe I should just not go further. This is a secret place Roberto wouldn't want me to find out so I shouldn't be.
A part of me wanted to close up with space back with the tiles but my curiosity wouldn't allow me.
My eyes kept going back to that file and I picked it all of a sudden and flipped it open.
I froze.
“Wait, what is this?”
“What is an adoption form doing here?”
Am I seeing right?”
I blinked multiple times as I stare at the signed documents in front of me.
“Oh my…..”
“Aria and Joanne were adopted????!”