Chapter 3 - THE POCKET WATCH
Matteo placed the heavy silver pocket watch on the table beside the phone.
The engraved initials on the casing caught the light of the crystal chandelier: T.R.
Thomas Reed.
My father.
The man currently lying in a hospital bed on the south side of Chicago, recovering from a massive stroke.
“Where did you get that?” I whispered, forgetting my place as the housekeeper.
Everyone turned to look at me.
Matteo frowned. “It was in my mother’s safety deposit box. The one the bank finally let me open yesterday when I turned twenty-two.”
Luca stared at the watch, his brow heavily furrowed.
“Elena’s box? Why would she have a watch with those initials?”
Vanessa let out a sharp, victorious laugh.
“Oh, Luca. You’re so blind. Tell them, Emma.”
My heart hammered against my ribs.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, my voice shaking.
Vanessa stepped toward me, her heels clicking aggressively on the marble.
“Don’t play stupid. Your father is Thomas Reed. A mechanic.”
I nodded slowly. “Yes. He’s a mechanic.”
“He was also the mechanic who serviced Elena’s car the day the brakes failed,” Vanessa said.
The room stopped breathing.
Seven years ago, Elena Moretti’s car had plunged off a cliff in heavy rain.
The police ruled it a tragic accident due to mechanical failure.
Anna gripped the back of a dining chair, her knuckles turning white.
“No,” Anna whispered. “Mom’s death was an accident.”
Vanessa’s smile was cruel.
“Was it? Because three days before the crash, your mother emptied a secret bank account of fifty thousand dollars. And the exact same week, a poor, struggling mechanic named Thomas Reed suddenly paid off his entire mortgage in cash.”
Luca looked at me.
The warmth in his eyes—the kindness he had shown me since I started working here—vanished.
It was replaced by the cold, dead stare of the most feared man in Chicago.
“Emma.”
His voice didn’t sound human.
“Is this true?”
“I was twenty-two, Mr. Moretti,” I pleaded, tears burning my eyes. “I was away at college. I didn’t know how my dad paid the house off. He told me he got a small business loan!”
Matteo stepped forward.
“There’s more,” he said quietly.
He popped open the silver casing of the pocket watch.
Tucked inside the lid was a small, folded piece of paper.
He handed it to his father.
Luca unfolded it.
It was a faded, handwritten receipt.
But it wasn’t from a mechanic’s shop.
It was from the Bellini family’s private security firm.
Vanessa’s family.
Luca read the paper, his chest rising and falling heavily.
He slowly lifted his eyes to his fiancée.
“Why,” Luca asked, “is your father’s signature on a payoff receipt given to Thomas Reed?”
Vanessa’s triumphant smirk completely collapsed.
She backed away again.
“That’s a forgery. That boy is trying to frame my family!”
“It was in my mother’s vault!” Matteo yelled, his composure breaking. “She knew you were coming for her, Vanessa! She knew your family wanted the Moretti empire, and she was the only thing standing in the way!”
Luca didn’t yell.
He turned the receipt over.
Written on the back, in his late wife’s elegant cursive, was a single sentence.
“If I die, find the girl.”
Luca looked at me.
I wasn’t just the housekeeper.
I was the missing piece to a murder.
Then, a heavy knock echoed from the front foyer.
May you like
The security guard stepped into the dining room, looking terrified.
“Mr. Moretti,” the guard stammered. “Victor Bellini is here. And he’s brought thirty men.”
