Ficorpio
Chapter 1
To make sure my coworker didn’t lose face at her wedding, I gave her half a month’s salary as gift money.
Eight thousand dollars.
And in return, I got a beat-up old mug someone had clearly used before.
I blocked her. Cut her off. For three whole years, I called her an ungrateful traitor every time her name came up.
Then today, while I was moving, that miserable piece of junk fell out of a box again.
I meant to smash it to pieces just to feel better.
Instead, the moment I picked it up, I realized it was absurdly heavy.
Too heavy.
It had the feel of solid gold sealed inside ceramic.
With shaking hands, I scraped away the thick glaze on the bottom.
Only then did I see it.
An address.
And six numbers.
My heart started to race.
I stared at the tiny line engraved into the base of the mug, my mind buzzing so loudly I could barely hear myself breathe.
The address belonged to Old Quarter Self-Storage.
The six digits looked exactly like an access code.
The blade of my box cutter was still pressed against the mug. A small patch of ceramic glaze had flaked away beneath it, exposing a hard, golden glare underneath.
It wasn’t gold plating.
I pressed the blade down harder. Metal dragged over metal with a harsh, grating screech.
Solid gold.
My hands began to tremble—not from excitement, but from a terror that had arrived three years too late.
This “cheap old mug” I had despised for three years was a disguised block of gold.
I immediately checked the current gold price online, then estimated the weight of the cup in my hand.
Fifty thousand.
At least fifty thousand.
Three years ago, my best friend, Evelyn Whitmore, got married. I gave her eight thousand dollars as wedding gift money, and she gave me back a solid-gold tumbler worth fifty thousand.
And I had thrown it into a cardboard box full of junk in front of everyone.
I had said, “Evelyn Whitmore, what is this? Are you treating me like some charity case? Who gives someone a used mug as a wedding favor?”
I still remembered the look on her face.
She hadn’t gotten angry. She hadn’t explained. Her eyes had only reddened as she lowered her head and looked at me with something close to pleading. Her lips moved, and she said softly, “Nora, this is the most precious thing I own. Please keep it safe for me.”
At the time, all I felt was humiliation.
I made sixteen thousand a month. Eight thousand was half my paycheck.
Chapter 2
For her sake, I had spent the whole wedding sparring with the bizarre relatives of her social-climbing husband, Derek Vance. I had taken them on one by one because they kept sneering that Evelyn’s family was new money, that she came from a redevelopment-compensation family, that she wasn’t good enough for Derek, the so-called graduate of an elite university.
I had shut every last one of them up and stood beside her through the toasts.
And what had I gotten in return?
This thing.
I thought she had used it to insult me.
Right there, on the spot, I blocked her number, her messages, and every possible way she could contact me.
Looking back now, I was a complete and utter idiot.
Guilt closed around me like wet cement, pressing in from every side until I could barely breathe.
I sank to my knees on the floor, tears spilling before I could stop them.
I had misunderstood her for three years.
I had cursed her for three years.
How could I possibly face the words she’d said to me—“the most precious thing I own”?
I wiped my face messily and forced my eyes back to the numbers engraved on the bottom of the tumbler.
Six digits.
A code.
Still shaking, I pulled out my phone and opened an encrypted notes app.
Evelyn’s birthday? I typed it in.
Wrong.
Derek Vance’s birthday?
I almost spat. Absolutely not.
Their wedding anniversary?
I tried it anyway.
Still wrong.
Then what was it?
My gaze swept around the room until it landed on an old photo album.
I opened to the first page.
It was a photo of us on graduation day, standing outside our college dorm. In the picture, the room number on the door behind us was perfectly clear.
Together with the last three digits of our school’s ZIP code, it made exactly six numbers.
I took a deep breath and entered that sequence into the self-storage company’s app as a temporary visitor code.
A green check mark popped up on the screen.
Verified.
My heart missed a beat.
What was Evelyn trying to tell me?
I didn’t dare waste another second. I grabbed my car keys and ran.
Old Quarter Self-Storage sat in a forgotten corner of the city, shabby and remote. The lights in the corridor flickered overhead, blinking in and out like they were too tired to stay alive.
Following the directions in the app, I found the unit.
The lock was electronic. I entered the familiar six-digit code.
With a soft beep, the door clicked open.
A stale, moldy smell rushed out at me, thick with dust and years of being sealed away.
The unit wasn’t large. There were no gold bars, no jewelry, no hidden fortune like I’d half imagined. Just a waist-high safe and, beside it, a yellowed folder.
I picked up the folder first.
The first page was a premarital medical exam.
Evelyn Whitmore’s.
Every indicator was normal. Healthy. Perfectly healthy.
I turned the page.
Chapter 3
Behind it was a thick stack of bank transfer records.
Every single payment had gone from Evelyn’s account to Derek Vance—or to his mother, Marlene Vance.
The largest transfer was for three million dollars.
It was the compensation money Evelyn’s parents had left her after their property was bought out for redevelopment.
The date on the transfer was three days after she and Derek got married.
My hands went cold.
At the back of the folder was a diary.
The handwriting was Evelyn’s—delicate and graceful at first. But the farther I read, the messier it became. Some pages were warped and wrinkled, as if tears had soaked through the paper and dried there.
October 3. Sunny.
Today Derek took me to meet his mother. She held my hand the whole time and said she would love me like her own daughter. I was so happy.
November 15. Cloudy.
At the wedding, Nora argued with Derek’s relatives because of me. I’m so useless.
I gave her that tumbler. It was made from the gold bars Dad left me. I was afraid it wouldn’t be safe at home.
Nora loves money more than anything. She’ll definitely keep it safe.
I hope she never finds the secret inside.
December 20. Rain.
Derek said he wants to start a business and asked me to use Mom and Dad’s money to support him. I hesitated, and he got upset.
He said I didn’t trust him.
January 5.
I gave him all the money.
He was so happy. He picked me up and spun me around again and again. He said he would make sure I had a good life from now on.
March 17.
He’s started leaving early and coming home late. When I ask about the company, he always says I wouldn’t understand.
His mother has moved in with us too. She keeps saying, casually but not really casually, that a woman’s place is at home, taking care of her husband and raising children.
May 22.
I’m pregnant.
Derek didn’t seem very happy.
His mother was thrilled. She said I was finally useful for something and that I’d better give birth to a son.
August 9.
I found him texting another woman. The messages were intimate.
When I asked him about it, he slapped me across the face.
He said I was being unreasonable. That I had mental problems.
His mother stood beside him and agreed, saying I had too much free time and was imagining things.
After that, the diary entries became fragmented.
The words looked less written than carved into the page with the last of her strength.
He’s started putting something in my soup. After I drink it, all I want to do is sleep.
I think I’m sick. I keep forgetting things.
They took away my phone and my laptop. They said they were afraid radiation would hurt the baby.
I tried to sneak out. They caught me and dragged me back.
Derek grabbed me by the throat and said if I ran again, he’d break my legs.
On the last page of the diary was a dark red stain.