Chapter 2 - THE BROTHER WHO NEVER TRULY LEFT
“The father wasn’t you.”
The silence in the cedar storage room was absolute.
Luca Moretti didn’t drop the yellowed plastic bracelet. He didn’t yell. He didn’t even stand up. He simply stared at the old jeweler from Milwaukee, his dark eyes unreadable in the dim light.
“My fiancée had a child seventeen years ago,” Luca said slowly.
“Yes.”
“And I am not the father.”
“No.”
“Then who is?”
Diane Keller pulled his suit jacket tighter around her trembling shoulders. She looked terrified, but she didn’t look away.
“Your brother.”
Luca stopped breathing.
“Dominic?”
“Yes.”
“My brother was murdered seventeen years ago.”
“I know.” Diane’s voice broke. “He was killed three days after Vanessa gave birth.”
Upstairs, the faint sound of the string quartet drifted through the floorboards. The engagement party. Thirty of Chicago’s most powerful people drinking champagne, entirely unaware that the foundation of the Moretti family had just cracked wide open.
“Where is the child?” Luca asked.
“Vanessa told me he died,” Diane whispered. “She came to my shop, gave me the ring Dominic bought from me, gave me the hospital bracelet, and said her baby had caught a fever.”
“But you don’t believe her.”
“No.” Diane reached into her pocket. “Because two weeks ago, someone broke into my shop. They didn’t take cash. They didn’t take diamonds. They only took Dominic’s original purchase receipt.”
Luca stood up, offering his hand to help the older woman off the floor.
“Come with me.”
Five minutes later, the door to the estate’s private medical clinic opened.
I was sitting on the examination table. Dr. Harris had just finished putting four stitches into my side. The pain was a dull ache, but the panic of losing my job was much sharper.
Then Luca walked in.
He was holding the baby bracelet. Diane Keller walked behind him, limping slightly.
Dr. Harris immediately stood. “Mr. Moretti, I was just finishing with Caroline—”
“Leave us,” Luca said.
The doctor didn’t argue. He walked out and closed the heavy oak door.
I sat frozen on the table, clutching my blood-stained apron.
Luca walked over to me. His expression wasn’t angry. It was terrifyingly calm.
“Caroline.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did Vanessa push you?”
My mouth went dry. If I told the truth, Vanessa would ruin me. She had the power to make sure I never cleaned another house in Chicago. My twelve-year-old daughter, Maya, would pay the price for my honesty.
“Caroline,” Luca repeated, his voice softening just a fraction. “I am asking you to trust me.”
I looked at the baby bracelet in his hand. Then I looked at the old woman leaning against the wall.
“She didn’t just push me,” I whispered. “She slammed me into the crate when she realized I saw her lock the door.”
Luca nodded once. He didn’t look surprised.
“Did she say anything to you?”
“She said if I told you, she would make sure child services investigated my home.”
The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.
Before Luca could respond, the clinic door swung open.
Vanessa walked in.
She looked immaculate in her white silk engagement dress. Her makeup was perfect. Her diamonds caught the fluorescent light.
Then she saw Diane Keller.
Vanessa didn’t scream. She didn’t run. She closed the door behind her and leaned against it, her face hardening into a mask of pure ice.
“I told you to stay in Milwaukee, Diane,” Vanessa said coldly.
Luca turned around. He held up the tiny plastic bracelet.
“Where is my nephew, Vanessa?”
Vanessa looked at the bracelet, then at Luca. She gave a short, bitter laugh.
“He’s dead, Luca. Just like his father.”
Diane stepped forward. “You’re lying! You sold him! You wanted a new life without the baggage of a dead mobster’s child!”
“I didn’t sell him!” Vanessa snapped, her composure finally cracking. “I protected him!”
Luca took a step toward her. “Protected him from who?”
Vanessa looked directly into Luca’s eyes.
“From your father.”
The room went completely still.
“My father is a good man,” Luca said, his voice dangerously low.
“Your father ordered Dominic’s death!” Vanessa yelled. “And he would have killed the baby too!”
I sat on the exam table, my heart pounding against my ribs. I was a maid. I shouldn’t be hearing this. I shouldn’t be in this room.
But then Vanessa reached into her designer clutch.
She pulled out a crumpled, faded photograph and threw it onto the metal counter next to me.
“If you don’t believe me, look at that,” Vanessa said.
I looked down.
The photograph showed Vanessa seventeen years ago, holding a newborn baby. Standing next to her was Dominic Moretti.
But my eyes weren’t on the parents.
They were on the baby.
The infant had a very distinct, crescent-shaped birthmark on his right collarbone.
I knew that birthmark.
I saw it every morning when the seventeen-year-old stable boy hauled hay into the barns.
“Leo,” I whispered out loud.
Luca snapped his head toward me. “What did you say?”
I looked up, my hands trembling.
“The boy in the stables. Leo. He has that exact birthmark.”
Vanessa’s face went completely white.
“No,” Vanessa whispered. “He isn’t supposed to be here.”
Before anyone could move, a gunshot echoed from the grounds outside.
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Coming directly from the stables.
TITLE: THE SILVER POCKET WATCH IN THE STABLES
