Chapter 3 - THE UNLOCKED SAFE
The blonde woman’s mouth opened, but no sound came out for a long moment.
Her lips parted, showing immaculate, bleached white teeth that seemed to lock in place.
"Her... house?" she breathed.
"Es la dueña de esta joyería," Matteo said calmly, shifting to English without changing his tone.
"She is the owner of this jewelry store."
"And sixteen others between here and Geneva."
The silence in the showroom became absolute.
The background violin music had reached a quiet pause between movements.
The only sound left was the soft, rhythmic tapping of the little boy's red sneakers against the floor.
Step.
Step.
Leo walked over to a display case containing a fifty-carat raw emerald brooch.
He put his forehead right against the glass.
A tiny oval of fog formed where his breath touched the surface.
Hoo.
Hoo.
He drew a tiny, crooked smiley face in the moisture with his index finger.
"Leo," the girl—Doña Yacita—said quietly.
"Don't smudge the glass. The workers spent three hours cleaning it this morning."
"Okay, Mama," Leo said.
He pulled his sleeve over his hand and carefully wiped the fog away, leaving a faint streak of cloth dust behind.
The blonde woman stepped backward.
Her high heel caught on the edge of a thick Persian rug lying near the entrance.
She stumbled, her arm swinging out wildly to catch her balance.
Her heavy handbag smacked against the side of a glass pedestal.
THUD.
The glass rattled inside its brass frame, but it didn't break.
"Owner?" the woman whispered, her voice cracking slightly.
She looked down at Yacita's bare feet, then up to the plain white cotton of her sleeveless dress.
There were no tags.
There were no logos.
No brand marks pressed into the cloth.
It was just seamless, perfectly cut white linen that hung straight down to her ankles.
"You... you don't even wear jewelry," the blonde woman stammered, pointing a shaking finger at Yacita’s neck.
"You own a diamond house, and you wear... nothing?"
Yacita turned her body fully toward the woman for the first time.
Her eyes were a deep, dark brown—almost black under the warm shop lights.
She looked at the woman’s fur coat.
Then at the heavy diamond chain wrapped around her neck.
Then down at the woman's shoes.
"Jewelry is armor for people who are afraid of being seen," Yacita said softly.
Her voice wasn't loud. It carried no anger, no theatrical drama.
It was as quiet as water pouring over smooth stone.
"You wear three hundred thousand dollars of my inventory on your body right now."
"And yet..."
Yacita stepped closer.
Her plain leather sandals made a faint slap-slap sound against the marble.
She stopped two feet away from the woman in fur.
"You look entirely hollow."
The blonde woman’s face flushed a deep, ugly red, creeping up from her powdered neck to the roots of her dyed hair.
"How dare you," she breathed, her chest heaving under the heavy brown mink.
"I am Mrs. Eleanor Vance. My husband—"
"—is currently renegotiating his line of credit with our parent holding group," Matteo interrupted smoothly from behind them.
He held a small black leather tablet in his hand, which he had pulled from his suit pocket.
He didn't look up from the screen.
"Mr. Vance requested a thirty-day extension on his account this morning at nine-fifteen."
"It is currently under review."
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"By Doña Yacita."
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