Chapter 3 - THE TRAITOR’S WATCH
The phone kept ringing.
Vivienne stared at the screen as if it were a venomous snake.
Nicholas didn’t yell.
He didn’t grab her.
He simply extended his hand, palm up.
“Give it to me.”
Vivienne’s hands trembled so violently she nearly dropped the phone.
She placed it in his palm.
Nicholas answered it and put it on speaker.
“Is it done?”
The voice belonged to Dominic DeLuca.
Nicholas’s younger brother.
The man who had just toasted to Nicholas and Vivienne’s engagement twenty minutes ago.
Nicholas didn’t speak.
On the other end of the line, Dominic let out a low, impatient breath.
“Vivienne. I said, is the nanny handled? Did you get the kid upstairs?”
I felt my heart slam against my ribs.
Handled.
Nicholas finally spoke.
“No, Dom. She didn’t.”
A dead silence filled the speaker.
Then, a click.
Dominic had hung up.
Nicholas looked at Marcus.
“Lock down the dining room. Nobody leaves.”
Marcus sprinted down the hallway.
Nicholas turned back to Vivienne.
She was sobbing now, her perfect makeup ruined, ruining her expensive ivory dress.
“He made me do it,” she wept. “Dominic. He said if I didn’t help him push you out of the business, he would tell you the truth about Elena.”
Nicholas stepped closer to her.
“What truth?”
Vivienne looked at me. Then at Ethan.
“Not in front of the boy.”
Nicholas picked Ethan up.
He handed him to me.
“Claire. Take him to my office. Lock the door. Do not open it for anyone but me.”
“Yes, sir.”
I carried Ethan down the opposite hall.
He buried his face in my neck.
“I don’t like Uncle Dom,” he whispered.
“I know, buddy. It’s okay. You’re safe.”
I reached the heavy oak doors of Nicholas’s private office.
I pushed them open and locked the deadbolt behind us.
The room was dark, lit only by the moonlight spilling across Nicholas’s massive mahogany desk.
I set Ethan down on the leather sofa.
“Stay right here,” I whispered.
I walked over to the desk to turn on the small brass lamp.
But my hand froze over the switch.
There was something sitting in the center of the leather blotter.
Something that hadn’t been there this morning.
A heavy, gold pocket watch.
I recognized it.
It was Dominic’s.
He never took it off.
I reached out and touched the gold casing.
It was still warm.
Someone had been in this office just minutes ago.
Suddenly, a floorboard creaked in the dark corner of the room.
I spun around.
May you like
A shadow moved away from the bookshelf.
“Hello, Claire,” Dominic said.
