Chapter 2 - THE POCKET WATCH
The heavy oak doors of the service corridor swung shut, cutting off the murmur of the ballroom.
Hannah leaned against the cool plaster wall, her chest heaving.
Her black uniform dress was soaked with champagne. The expensive vintage alcohol clung to her skin, chilling her.
She stared down at her right hand.
Vincent Duca’s white handkerchief was wrapped tightly around her palm. Blood had already seeped through the fine linen, staining the embroidered initials V.D. a rusty crimson.
A mafia don.
The man who owned judges and decimated rivals had knelt in spilled champagne and handed her his handkerchief.
“Take off the apron, Hannah.”
Eleanor’s voice was sharp. Cold.
The estate manager stood at the end of the narrow hallway, her tablet clutched tightly against her chest. She wasn’t looking at Hannah with the usual disdain reserved for clumsy waitresses.
She was looking at her with fear.
“Eleanor, I’m sorry,” Hannah started, her voice shaking. “I didn’t mean to drop the tray. A man stepped back into my shoulder—”
“I don’t care about the glasses.”
Eleanor stepped closer. The fluorescent lights overhead buzzed, casting harsh shadows across her sharp cheekbones.
“Mr. Duca just locked down a manor filled with federal judges and city councilmen,” Eleanor said, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “He doesn’t do that for broken crystal. He does that when he finds a ghost.”
Hannah swallowed hard. “A ghost?”
“Who are your parents?”
The question hit Hannah like a physical blow.
She crossed her arms over her chest, suddenly feeling terribly exposed. At twenty-six, her weight had always been her armor, a way to blend into the background, to be the invisible girl who worked hard and asked for nothing.
Now, she was the center of a terrifying interrogation.
“My mother died when I was two,” Hannah said quietly. “My father gave me up to foster care right after. I don’t know them.”
Eleanor’s eyes narrowed. She typed something rapidly into her tablet.
“You told the agency your last name was Brooks. Is that your birth name?”
“It was my foster family’s name. I kept it.”
Eleanor stopped typing.
She looked at Hannah’s face. Really looked at it.
“You have her eyes,” Eleanor breathed, almost to herself.
“Whose eyes?”
Before Eleanor could answer, heavy, rapid footsteps echoed down the adjacent staircase.
Marcus Cain, the head of security, rounded the corner. His dark suit jacket was unbuttoned, revealing the distinct bulge of a shoulder holster.
“Eleanor, step away from her,” Marcus ordered.
Eleanor stiffened. “I’m conducting the background check Mr. Duca requested.”
“Mr. Duca requested it be done quietly. Not in a hallway interrogation.” Marcus placed his massive body between the two women. He turned to Hannah. “Miss Brooks. Please come with me.”
Hannah’s heart hammered against her ribs.
“Am I fired?” she asked.
“No.”
“Am I in trouble?”
“That depends entirely on what you have in your pockets,” Marcus said.
Hannah frowned. Her hands automatically went to the deep pockets of her black uniform dress.
Her left pocket was empty.
But when her fingers slipped into her right pocket, they brushed against cold, heavy metal.
Hannah froze.
She hadn’t put anything in her pocket before her shift. She wasn't even allowed to carry her cell phone during service.
“Take it out,” Marcus commanded gently.
Hannah’s breath caught in her throat. She slowly pulled her hand out of the pocket.
Resting in her palm was a heavy, antique silver pocket watch.
The casing was tarnished, covered in deep scratches that looked like they had been made by concrete. The chain was broken.
“Where did you get that?” Eleanor gasped, stepping out from behind Marcus.
“I don’t know,” Hannah stammered, staring at the object. “It wasn’t in my pocket when I walked into the ballroom. I swear it wasn’t.”
Marcus didn’t look angry. He looked terrified.
He didn’t touch the watch. He reached for the radio clipped to his belt.
“Boss,” Marcus said into the mic. “I have her. But there’s a complication.”
A burst of static. Then Vincent Duca’s voice, tight and low.
“What complication?”
“She’s holding the Salerno watch.”
The radio went dead silent.
Five seconds passed. Ten.
“Bring her to the study,” Vincent finally replied. “Do not let anyone else see her.”
Marcus grabbed Hannah’s elbow. Not roughly, but with the firm grip of a man who was now treating her like a high-value target.
“Walk with me. Keep your head down,” Marcus said.
They bypassed the bustling kitchens and moved through a series of hidden staff corridors, stepping out into the opulent, silent west wing of the manor.
Hannah clutched the silver watch in her good hand, her other hand still wrapped in Vincent’s bloody handkerchief.
“Mr. Cain,” Hannah whispered as they walked. “Who put this in my pocket?”
“The man who caused you to drop that tray,” Marcus said grimly.
Hannah thought back to the collision. The man had bumped her hard, his hand pressing against her hip to steady himself for just a fraction of a second.
He had slipped the watch into her pocket.
“Why?” Hannah asked.
Marcus stopped in front of a pair of massive mahogany doors.
“Because twenty-four years ago, that watch was found in the ashes of a burned apartment building,” Marcus said. “The same fire that killed a woman named Clara. Your mother.”
Hannah stopped breathing.
Before she could process the revelation, Marcus pushed the doors open.
Vincent Duca was standing by the fireplace, staring into the flames. He had taken off his suit jacket. His white shirt was rolled up at the sleeves, revealing a jagged, terrible burn scar that ran up his right forearm.
He turned around.
When he looked at Hannah, the cold, ruthless exterior of the mafia boss vanished again.
“Clara’s daughter,” Vincent said softly.
He walked toward her, his eyes falling on the silver pocket watch in her hand.
“Do you know whose watch that is, Hannah?” Vincent asked.
She shook her head, tears pricking her eyes. “Marcus said it was found in the fire that killed my mother.”
Vincent took the watch from her palm. His fingers brushed against hers, surprisingly warm.
“It belonged to the man who struck the match,” Vincent said.
He pressed a hidden button on the side of the watch.
The silver lid popped open.
But there was no clock face inside.
There was only a faded, perfectly preserved photograph.
Vincent turned the watch around so Hannah could see it.
Hannah stared at the tiny picture, her blood turning to ice.
It was a photograph of the man who had bumped into her in the ballroom. The man who had smiled as she fell. Dominic Salerno.
But that wasn’t what made Hannah’s knees buckle.
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Standing next to Dominic in the photograph, smiling with his arm around Dominic’s shoulder, was a man Hannah had not seen in twenty-four years.
Her father.
