Chapter 3 - THE SILVER WATCH
The silence in the sitting room felt heavy enough to crush bone.
Luca stared at the partially burned photograph in his hand, his thumb tracing the jagged, charred edge.
In the grainy security image, Vanessa’s face was turned slightly away, but her distinctive profile and the red silk robe she often wore were unmistakable.
Dr. Evans stood opposite her, his medical bag slung over his shoulder, reaching for the thick envelope of cash.
“11:15 PM,” Luca whispered, reading the timestamp aloud.
His voice was terrifyingly hollow.
“My mother’s official time of death was recorded as 11:30 PM. He took a payoff fifteen minutes before he pronounced her dead.”
I sat frozen in my chair, clutching the emerald necklace he had given me to keep up the lie.
“Mr. Moretti,” I said gently. “If Vanessa paid the doctor to falsify the cause of death… what actually happened to your mother?”
Luca didn’t answer right away.
He slowly lowered the photograph, his jaw clenching so hard a muscle jumped in his cheek.
The man who had always maintained perfect, chilling composure was fracturing right in front of me.
Before he could speak, a soft, timid knock echoed from the sitting-room door.
Luca immediately slipped the photograph into his pocket alongside the letter.
“Come in,” he commanded, his voice instantly returning to a smooth, authoritative baseline.
The door creaked open.
Standing in the hallway was a small boy, wearing oversized silk pajamas and rubbing one sleepy eye.
It was Oliver.
He was six years old, the orphaned son of Luca’s late brother. Luca had taken the boy in two years ago, raising him as his own and positioning him as the sole heir to the Moretti empire.
“Uncle Luca?” Oliver mumbled, his bare feet padding softly on the hardwood floor.
The terrifying Mafia boss instantly melted.
Luca crossed the room in three long strides and dropped to one knee, wrapping his large hands gently around the boy’s small shoulders.
“Oliver. You’re supposed to be in bed, buddy. It’s late.”
“I couldn’t sleep,” the boy said quietly.
Then, Oliver looked past his uncle and saw me sitting by the window.
He offered me a shy, missing-tooth smile.
I always sneaked extra cookies up to his room when Vanessa wasn’t looking, and he hadn’t forgotten.
“Hi, Emma.”
“Hi, Oliver,” I smiled back, ignoring the throbbing pain in my bandaged hand.
Oliver turned his attention back to his uncle.
He reached into the pocket of his pajama pants.
“I got in trouble,” Oliver confessed, looking down at the floor. “Aunt Vanessa yelled at me.”
Luca’s entire posture stiffened.
“Why did she yell at you?”
Oliver pulled his small hand out of his pocket and held it out.
Resting in his palm was a heavy, antique silver pocket watch.
The intricate floral engraving on the casing was beautiful, but the glass covering the face was completely shattered, frozen in time.
I recognized it immediately.
It was Isabella Moretti’s favorite watch. She used to keep it on her bedside table every single night.
“She caught me playing with Grandma’s watch in the hallway,” Oliver said, his lower lip trembling slightly. “She grabbed my arm really hard and told me to throw it in the garbage. She said it was broken trash.”
Luca’s eyes darkened, dropping to the spot on Oliver’s arm where Vanessa had grabbed him.
He gently took the silver watch from the boy’s hand.
“It’s not trash, Oliver. It’s a very important memory.”
Luca looked at the shattered face of the watch.
The hands were permanently jammed into the crushed mechanics.
They were stopped at exactly 11:15.
The exact time stamped on the security photograph.
Luca’s breath hitched.
He stood up slowly, holding the watch as if it were a live grenade.
“Oliver,” Luca said, his voice terrifyingly calm. “Do you remember how Grandma’s watch got broken?”
The boy nodded slowly.
“I heard a loud crash the night Grandma went to heaven. I peeked out of my door.”
My heart stopped beating.
Luca knelt back down, his hands trembling slightly.
“What did you see, buddy? Tell Uncle Luca exactly what you saw.”
“Aunt Vanessa came out of Grandma’s room,” Oliver whispered, looking nervously toward the door. “She was walking really fast. The watch fell out of her pocket and smashed on the floor. She kicked it under the hallway table and ran away.”
Vanessa hadn’t just paid the doctor.
She had been inside the room.
She had taken the watch to make it look like a robbery, or simply out of spite, and dropped it in her panic to escape.
Luca closed his eyes.
A profound, agonizing grief washed over his features, quickly replaced by a rage so cold it made the temperature in the room plummet.
“Thank you, Oliver,” Luca said softly. He kissed the boy’s forehead. “You did a very good thing telling me this.”
He looked at me.
“Emma, take Oliver back to his room. Stay there with him. Lock the door. Do not open it for anyone but me.”
“Where are you going?” I asked, standing up so quickly my head spun.
“I am going to pay a late-night visit to Dr. Evans,” Luca said, slipping the broken silver watch into his pocket. “And he is going to tell me exactly what Vanessa poisoned my mother with.”
Luca didn’t wait for my answer.
He turned and walked out of the room, the terrifying aura of a Mafia boss fully radiating from his broad shoulders.
I took Oliver’s small hand in my uninjured one.
“Come on, sweetie. Let’s get you to bed.”
We hurried up the back servants’ stairs, avoiding the grand foyer where the engagement party was still in full swing.
When we reached Oliver’s massive bedroom, I tucked him into bed and pulled the heavy blankets up to his chin.
“Is Uncle Luca mad at me?” Oliver asked sleepily.
“No, baby,” I whispered, brushing his dark curls back. “He loves you very much.”
I walked over to the heavy oak door and turned the deadbolt, just as Luca had instructed.
Then I sat in the rocking chair by the window, staring out at the dark Chicago skyline, praying Luca would find his answers.
Two hours passed.
The house grew completely silent as the party finally ended and the guests departed.
My phone vibrated in my apron pocket.
It was an unknown number.
I answered it quickly, keeping my voice low. “Hello?”
“Emma.”
It was Luca.
His voice sounded entirely wrong. It wasn’t angry or commanding. It sounded fractured.
“Did you find the doctor?” I asked desperately.
“I found his house,” Luca said. The sound of police sirens wailed faintly in the background of the call.
“What did he say?”
There was a long, terrible pause on the line.
“He didn’t say anything,” Luca finally whispered.
“Why not?”
“Because Dr. Evans was found dead in his study three hours ago,” Luca said, his voice devoid of all emotion. “Someone made it look like a suicide. But the envelope of cash from the photograph was sitting right on his desk.”
A cold sweat broke out across my neck.
Vanessa was cleaning house.
She knew the truth was coming out.
May you like
And before I could say another word, the heavy brass doorknob of Oliver’s bedroom slowly began to jiggle.
Someone was trying to get in.
