Chapter 3 - THE BLOODSTAINED WATCH
The freezing wind howled down Sullivan Street, but I couldn't feel the cold.
All I could see was the tiny, faded photograph inside the bloodstained watch. The woman in the picture was young, maybe eighteen, with the same dark hair and wide eyes that stared back at me in the mirror every morning.
“Your mother?” Nicholas’s voice was sharp, cutting through the shock.
He stepped closer, holding the watch out to me under the harsh glare of the streetlights.
I reached out with a trembling hand and touched the edge of the photograph.
“Yes,” I whispered, my voice barely working. “Her name is Helen. She was a teenager in this picture.”
From the sidewalk, Rebecca scoffed. She marched through the broken gate, her white fur coat dusting against the debris.
“Oh, please,” Rebecca sneered. “This is ridiculous. You expect me to believe your little maid is somehow connected to a thirty-year-old murder weapon?”
Nicholas didn't even look at her. He kept his eyes locked on mine.
“Sophie,” his voice was surprisingly gentle. “Did your mother ever mention Arthur Sterling?”
I shook my head frantically. “No. Never. She worked in a school cafeteria for twenty-eight years. Before that, she cleaned houses. She never mentioned your family or the Sterlings.”
Rebecca laughed a cold, grating sound.
“Because she’s lying, Nicholas. They’re all lying! This is a pathetic attempt to extort us.” Rebecca reached for the watch. “Give me that. It belongs to my father.”
Before her manicured fingers could even brush the silver casing, Nicholas grabbed her wrist.
His grip was a vice.
“Don't touch it,” Nicholas said, his voice dropping to a terrifying register. “This watch was buried by my father the night a man was murdered in this neighborhood. The night my father was framed and sent to a maximum-security prison for life.”
Rebecca winced, trying to pull her arm back, but he held firm.
“My father went away maintaining his innocence,” Nicholas continued, his eyes burning into hers. “He said the real killer dropped something at the scene. But the police never found it. Because my father hid it here.”
Nicholas released her wrist with a disgusted shove.
Rebecca stumbled backward, clutching her arm. For the first time, the arrogant heiress looked genuinely afraid.
“You’re insane,” she gasped. “My father is a pillar of this city! He practically built this neighborhood!”
“No,” Nicholas corrected, his voice like ice. “He bought it. And now I know how.”
He turned to his head of security, Marco, who had just pulled up in a second SUV.
“Marco,” Nicholas barked. “Put a detail on this property. Nobody touches a single brick of this house. If the demolition crew tries to start those engines, break their hands.”
“Understood, boss,” Marco said, unbuttoning his jacket to reveal his shoulder holster.
Nicholas turned back to me. “Where does your mother live?”
“Queens,” I stammered. “But she’s sick, Mr. Valentino. She has severe arthritis, she’s fragile—”
“I won't hurt her, Sophie,” he promised softly. “But she’s the only one who can tell us why her picture is inside the watch of a murderer.”
Twenty minutes later, we were standing outside my mother’s small, ground-floor apartment in Astoria.
The paint was peeling on the front door. The hallway smelled of old soup and damp carpet. It was a world away from the Valentino mansion.
I unlocked the door with my key.
The apartment was dark except for the small lamp on the bedside table in the living room, where my mother slept because the stairs were too hard for her joints.
“Mom?” I called out softly.
My mother sat up on the sofa bed, pulling her knitted blanket around her shoulders. Her hands were swollen and knotted with pain.
“Sophie?” she squinted into the dim light. “What are you doing here so late? Who is that man with you?”
I walked over and knelt beside her bed, taking her painful hands in mine.
“Mom, this is my boss. Nicholas Valentino.”
My mother froze.
Her breath hitched in her throat. The color completely drained from her wrinkled face.
She didn't look at me. She looked past me, staring directly at Nicholas.
“Valentino,” she whispered, her voice filled with a terror that broke my heart.
Nicholas stepped forward slowly, respectfully removing his coat.
“Mrs. Mitchell,” Nicholas said gently. “I apologize for the late intrusion. But I need to ask you about something.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the rusted tin. He opened it and took out the bloody silver watch.
He held it open so she could see the tiny photograph.
My mother let out a strangled, agonizing sob.
She pulled her hands away from mine and covered her face, weeping so violently her small frame shook.
“Mom, it’s okay,” I panicked, trying to hold her. “What is it? What does it mean?”
“I tried to forget,” my mother cried, tears streaming through her gnarled fingers. “I tried so hard to protect you, Sophie.”
“Protect me from what?” I begged.
My mother lowered her hands, looking at Nicholas with devastating guilt.
“From the truth,” she whispered. “Arthur Sterling didn't just drop that watch the night he killed that man, Mr. Valentino.”
She took a ragged breath.
“He gave it to me. To hide.”
Nicholas stood perfectly still. “You knew my father didn't do it.”
“I was Arthur Sterling’s maid,” my mother cried, the truth finally spilling out after thirty years of silence. “I was in the room when he shot his partner over a real estate deal. Your father was just the driver. He walked in right after the gunshot.”
“Why didn't you tell the police?” Nicholas asked, his voice cracking with thirty years of repressed grief.
My mother looked at me, her eyes filled with a desperate, crushing love.
“Because Arthur Sterling put a gun to my stomach,” she wept. “I was pregnant with you, Sophie. He told me if I ever said a word, he would kill my baby.”
I couldn't breathe. My entire life, my mother’s silent suffering, the poverty, the fear—it was all because of the man whose daughter had just tried to throw me out on the street.
Suddenly, the heavy wooden door of my mother’s apartment was kicked open with a violent crash.
Wood splintered everywhere.
Three massive men in dark suits stepped into the cramped living room, drawing silenced pistols.
And stepping in behind them, wearing a perfectly tailored charcoal suit, was Arthur Sterling.
He looked at my terrified mother, then at Nicholas.
May you like
Arthur smiled, pulling a silver apple brooch from his pocket—identical to the one Mrs. Harper wore—and tossed it onto the coffee table.
“You really shouldn't have dug up the past, Nicholas,” Arthur said smoothly. “Some things are buried for a reason.”
