Chapter 2 - THE WATCH IN THE RED BOX
The silence in the dining room was absolute.
Every wealthy guest, every server, every guard standing near the exits had frozen.
Dominic didn’t look at the engagement dinner. He didn't look at me. His eyes were locked on the small, worn red velvet box resting on the white linen tablecloth.
Sabrina’s perfect posture finally broke. She took half a step backward, her red silk gown brushing against her chair.
"Dominic," Sabrina said. Her voice was too high. Too thin. "Don't open that. She's just trying to humiliate me."
"Then let her," Dominic replied.
His voice wasn't angry. It was terrifyingly calm.
He reached out and flipped the brass latch on the red box.
The lid popped open.
Inside, resting on faded white satin, was a gold pocket watch.
The glass face was shattered. The gold casing was dented. And the intricate black hands were permanently frozen at exactly 11:42.
My breath caught in my throat. I had worked in the Marino house for two years. I knew the history.
Everyone in Chicago knew the history.
Three years ago, Dominic and Elena’s father, Vincenzo Marino, had died in a violent car crash on the coastal highway. His car had gone over the embankment at exactly 11:42 PM.
His body was recovered. His belongings were returned.
But his famous gold pocket watch—the one he had carried every day of his life—was missing. The police assumed it had been thrown from the wreck or stolen by a scavenger.
Dominic stared at the broken watch.
His hand, usually as steady as stone, trembled slightly as he picked it up.
"Where did you get this?" Dominic asked, his voice cracking like breaking ice.
Elena stood tall, though tears were streaming down her face.
"I found it in the lining of Sabrina’s winter coat," Elena said. "Three years ago. Two days after Dad’s funeral."
Answer one: The watch wasn't stolen by a stranger. Sabrina had it.
Open two: How did Sabrina get the watch of a man who died alone in a fiery crash, and why did she hide it?
Sabrina’s face lost all its color. "She's lying! She planted it!"
"Why would I plant my father's most prized possession?" Elena fired back, her voice echoing in the grand room. "I confronted you about it. In your bedroom. And you told me that if I ever showed it to Dominic, you would tell him I was the one who drove Dad off the road. You said you had witnesses ready to swear to it."
Dominic slowly turned to his fiancée.
"You told me you were in New York the night my father died," Dominic whispered.
"I was!" Sabrina cried, stepping toward him. "Dominic, you know I was! The flight records—"
"Can be bought," Dominic cut her off.
He looked at the shattered face of the watch.
"My father never took this off," Dominic said. "The only way someone gets this is if they take it from him. After the crash."
A massive reversal. The grieving fiancée wasn't just a manipulator who kept siblings apart. She was at the scene of the patriarch’s murder.
Sabrina looked around the room. The guests were staring at her in horror. She looked at the guards at the door.
"Frankie," Sabrina snapped, looking at Dominic's head of security. "Escort this crazy woman out of my house."
Frankie, a massive man with a scarred jaw, didn't move an inch. He looked at Dominic.
"Nobody moves," Dominic ordered.
He looked back at his sister. "Elena. Is there anything else?"
Elena swallowed hard. She looked exhausted, broken, but fiercely determined.
"I didn't come here tonight just to expose her, Dominic," Elena said, her voice dropping to a desperate whisper. "I came because I need your protection. Sabrina found out about him."
Dominic frowned. "About who?"
"My son," Elena sobbed. "Leo."
The room gasped. Dominic had a nephew. An heir to the Marino bloodline.
"Sabrina threatened him today," Elena cried. "She said if I didn't sign over my shares of the estate by midnight, Leo would disappear."
Dominic’s eyes widened. "Where is he? Where is my nephew?"
"I left him in the staff room," Elena said, looking toward the kitchen doors. "With a coloring book. I told him to stay hidden until I got you."
My stomach plummeted into my shoes.
I had just come from the staff room.
I dropped my serving tray. The crystal glasses shattered against the hardwood floor.
Dominic whipped his head toward me. "Claire?"
"Mr. Marino," I gasped, the blood draining from my face. "I was just in the staff room. There was no little boy in there."
Dominic didn't wait. He sprinted toward the kitchen. I ran after him, my heart hammering against my ribs. Elena followed close behind, screaming Leo’s name.
We burst through the swinging doors and into the small staff breakroom at the back of the house.
It was empty.
The back door, leading to the service alley, was swinging wide open, letting in the freezing rain.
Dominic stopped in the center of the room.
On the small wooden table, next to an overturned box of crayons, was a child’s drawing.
I picked it up.
It was a drawing of a black car. But over the car, drawn in thick, violent red crayon, was a massive, bloody handprint.
May you like
And written beneath the handprint, in adult handwriting, were three words.
Check your pockets.
