Chapter 60: The Ring He Made

"You've already met him."

The call ended.

Victor immediately tried calling Briggs back.

The number no longer existed.

"Damn it," Arthur muttered.

"Burner phone."

Damien stood motionless.

"We've already met Julian..."

"Who?"

"Nathaniel never wrote names without reason," Victor said.

"If Briggs is telling the truth, then Julian has been close enough to watch us all along."

I looked down at the music box resting in my hands.

The melody had stopped.

Only silence remained.

"My brother wanted us to find this," I whispered.

"Which means we're still missing something."

Victor nodded.

"Search everything."

Arthur carefully examined the wooden box under a flashlight.

"Hidden compartments... hinges... joints..."

"Nothing obvious."

"Wait."

He turned the box upside down.

"There's fresh glue here."

"Nathaniel repaired it recently."

"Can you open it?" Damien asked.

"Without breaking it? Maybe."

Arthur used a small utility blade from his toolkit.

Carefully, he loosened the thin wooden panel beneath the base.

It lifted away.

Inside was another cavity.

Smaller than the first.

Wrapped in soft velvet rested a platinum ring.

Nobody spoke.

The design was unlike anything I had ever seen.

A narrow platinum band.

An emerald set between two tiny diamonds.

The inside carried a hand engraving.

"V & D."

My fingers trembled.

"Vivian and Damien," I whispered.

Damien stared at the ring.

"I never commissioned this."

"Neither did I."

Victor picked up a folded note lying beneath it.

"Nathaniel's handwriting."

He opened it carefully.

"If you found this," he read,

"then one of you finally learned how to listen."

A faint smile crossed my face.

That sounded exactly like Nathaniel.

Victor continued.

"Viv... this ring isn't evidence."

"It's a promise."

"I made it after Damien came to see me."

My heart skipped.

"Damien visited Nathaniel?"

Damien looked genuinely confused.

"I visited him the week before the accident."

"Only once."

"He wanted to discuss your designs."

"He never mentioned a ring."

Victor kept reading.

"He didn't ask me to make jewellery."

"He asked me whether I believed broken things could ever be repaired."

"I told him metal can always be melted and shaped again."

"People... are more difficult."

"He laughed."

"Then he said he hoped someday you would forgive him."

The room became perfectly still.

I slowly looked at Damien.

"You never told me you met Nathaniel."

"Because the conversation ended badly," he admitted quietly.

"He accused me of burying your career."

"I told him he didn't understand our marriage."

"He said I didn't understand you."

"He was right," Damien whispered.

Victor finished reading.

"Nathaniel asked me to keep this ring hidden."

"Not because it was valuable."

"Because if Vivian ever found it... she'd know Damien wasn't lying about everything."

"Some people regret too late."

"Don't let both of you make that mistake."

Victor lowered the note.

Nobody said a word.

For months I had believed Damien destroyed every part of my old life without remorse.

Yet Nathaniel—who trusted almost no one—had hidden proof that Damien had tried to change.

Too late.

But genuinely.

"There's more," Arthur interrupted.

"The ring isn't ordinary."

"Look inside the emerald."

He handed me a jeweller's loupe.

I held it over the stone.

Tiny letters had been laser-etched beneath the setting.

"N.C."

"Nathaniel Carter," I breathed.

"No," Arthur corrected.

"Those aren't initials."

"They're coordinates."

"North Coordinate."

Victor immediately copied the numbers into his tablet.

"It's a map reference."

"Where does it lead?" Damien asked.

Arthur waited as the system calculated.

A location appeared.

Ashford Memorial Cemetery.

Section Nine.

Row Four.

Plot Twelve.

My breathing stopped.

"Nathaniel's grave," I whispered.

"No," Victor replied slowly.

"The coordinates point beside Nathaniel's grave."

"There's another burial plot."

"Whose?"

Arthur zoomed in.

The name registered to Plot Twelve had been erased from digital records.

"That's impossible," he muttered.

"Burial records can't simply disappear."

"Unless someone paid for them to."

Victor closed the music box.

"We're going to the cemetery."

"Tonight."

"If Nathaniel hid another clue there, I don't want someone else finding it first."

As they turned to leave, the depot manager hurried toward them.

"Excuse me!"

"Someone asked me to give you this if you collected the music box."

He handed Victor a sealed envelope.

No name.

No stamp.

Only one sentence written across the front.

"Don't open this until you reach the grave."

Victor slipped it into his coat pocket.

"Who gave it to you?"

The manager pointed toward the station entrance.

"An elderly gentleman with a walking stick."

"Did you get his name?"

"No."

"But he said something before he left."

"What did he say?"

The manager frowned, trying to remember.

"He said..."

"Tell Vivian the man buried beside Nathaniel isn't dead."