Chapter 3 - THE WATCH IN THE ALLEY
The heavy silver watch lay on the kitchen tiles, glinting under the fluorescent lights.
My breath caught in my throat. I reached down and picked it up before the bodyguards noticed. The cold metal burned against my palm. I shoved it deep into my apron pocket as we hauled Roman into the back of a black SUV.
“Drive,” the largest bodyguard ordered the driver. “Take us to her address.”
Twenty minutes later, we were carrying the unconscious crime boss up three flights of stairs to my cramped apartment.
My neighbor, Mrs. Higgins, who was watching Leo, took one look at the bleeding men in expensive suits and practically ran out the door.
“Mommy?”
Leo stood in the doorway of his small bedroom. He was clutching his stuffed bear, his cheeks flushed with fever from his ear infection.
“It’s okay, baby,” I promised, rushing over to press a kiss to his warm forehead. “Mommy’s boss is just very sick. Go back to bed. I bought your medicine.”
Once Leo was tucked in, I returned to the living room. Roman was stretched out on my cheap floral sofa. The bodyguards had removed his jacket and shirt to tend to his wound.
The bleeding had stopped, thanks to the stitches a mafia doctor had apparently done in the car, but Roman was burning with a fever.
I ordered the bodyguards into the kitchen to make ice packs.
I sat alone beside Roman.
I pulled the silver watch from my pocket. My hands shook as I pressed the small latch. The lid popped open.
Inside, the inscription was identical to the one in my memory: For eternity. J.
My ex-fiancé, Julian, had worn this watch every single day. He told me it was a family heirloom. Then, five years ago, he walked out the door to buy groceries and never came back. I thought he was a coward. I thought he left us because he didn't want a child.
“Where did you get this?” I whispered to the unconscious man.
Roman’s gray eyes slowly fluttered open. He was weak, but his gaze was sharp.
He looked at the watch in my hand.
“Put that down,” he rasped.
“No.” My voice trembled, but I didn't back away. “My son’s father had this watch. He disappeared five years ago. How do you have it?”
Roman pushed himself up onto his elbows, wincing in agony. He stared at me, truly looking at me for the first time.
“What was his name?” Roman demanded.
“Julian.”
Roman went completely still. The silence in the small living room was deafening.
“Julian was my younger brother,” Roman said softly.
The room spun. My ex-fiancé, the struggling artist who lived with me in a studio apartment, was the brother of a Chicago syndicate boss?
“Julian didn't abandon you, Megan,” Roman said, his voice thick with a grief that hadn't faded in five years. “He was murdered.”
Tears spilled over my cheeks. Five years of resentment, of telling myself he didn't care, evaporated into a horrifying new reality.
“Who killed him?” I sobbed.
Before Roman could answer, the front door of my apartment exploded inward.
Splinters of wood rained across the living room. Roman’s bodyguards drew their weapons instantly.
A tall man in a camel-hair coat stepped over the ruined doorframe. He looked remarkably like Roman, but his eyes were cruel and empty.
Victor. The brother who had stabbed him.
“Hello, Roman,” Victor smiled, flanked by six armed men. “Did you really think I wouldn't track the GPS in your phone?”
Victor’s eyes slowly moved to me. Then, they landed on the silver watch in my trembling hand.
His smile vanished.
“Where did you get Julian’s watch, you little rat?” Victor hissed.
And from the hallway behind me, a tiny voice answered.
“Don't yell at my Mommy.”
Leo was standing there.
Victor looked at my five-year-old son. He looked at Leo’s gray eyes—the exact same gray eyes Roman possessed. The Moretti family eyes.
May you like
Victor raised his gun and pointed it directly at my child.
TITLE: THE BOY IN THE HALLWAY
