Chapter 4 - THE WATCH FROM THE NIGHT HE DIED
The silence in the study was deafening.
Luca ran his thumb over the engraved silver casing, his chest rising and falling in shallow, rigid breaths. The shattered crystal from his glass glittered on the floor between us, forgotten.
"Your father's watch?" I repeated, my voice barely a whisper. "But the police said your father was killed in a random robbery. They said his valuables were sold on the black market."
"They were," Luca said, his eyes never leaving the silver timepiece. "The police recovered his wallet and his ring a year later. But this watch... it was custom-made in Italy. It had a secret compartment. The thief couldn't figure out how to open it, so he supposedly threw it in the river."
He looked up at me, his dark eyes burning with a sudden, lethal clarity.
"If Vanessa had this in her pocket, it means she didn't just steal money from my charity. It means her family has been lying to me for fifteen years about who ordered my father's death."
My stomach plummeted. The Bellinis were one of the oldest, most powerful families in Chicago. If Marcus Bellini—Vanessa’s father—had orchestrated the murder of Luca’s father, the engagement wasn't just a business merger. It was a Trojan horse. A way for the Bellinis to completely absorb the Moretti empire from the inside.
"Answer One, Open Two," I murmured to myself.
Luca caught the phrase. "What did you say?"
"It's something my grandmother used to say," I explained quickly. "When you catch someone in a small lie, it usually means they're hiding two bigger ones right behind it."
Luca stared at me. "Your grandmother was a smart woman."
He pressed a hidden latch near the crown of the watch. The silver back popped open with a soft click.
Inside the secret compartment wasn't a photograph or a tiny mechanism. It was a small, folded piece of brittle, yellowed parchment.
Luca pulled it out carefully. The paper crackled in the quiet room.
He unfolded it and read the faded ink.
As he read, the anger in his face vanished, replaced by a look of utter shock.
"I don't understand," Luca whispered.
"What is it?" I asked, stepping closer.
He turned the paper around so I could see it.
It was a birth certificate.
But it wasn't an official state document. It looked like a private hospital record, typed on an old typewriter. The date was twenty-eight years ago.
Mother: Maria Moretti.
Father: Unknown.
Child: Female.
I frowned. "Your mother had a daughter? You have a sister?"
"No," Luca said, shaking his head slowly. "My mother died giving birth to me thirty-five years ago. Maria Moretti was my aunt. She was my father's younger sister."
"I didn't know you had an aunt."
"Nobody did," Luca said, his voice hollow. "She was exiled from the family before I was born. My father banished her because she fell in love with a man from a rival family. She disappeared. My father told everyone she died in a car accident in Europe."
Luca stared at the yellowed paper.
"This watch was on my father the night he died. He must have been carrying this birth certificate. Which means he found Maria. He found out she had a child."
He looked at me, his eyes filled with a desperate need for answers.
"Why would Vanessa’s father want the birth certificate of an exiled Moretti daughter?" Luca asked.
Before I could guess, the heavy oak doors of the study flew open without a knock.
Daniel stood in the doorway, breathing heavily. He looked panicked—an expression I had never seen on the giant security chief.
"Sir," Daniel said, his voice tight. "We have a problem."
"What did she do now?" Luca demanded, sliding the watch into his pocket.
"It's not Vanessa, sir," Daniel said. "It's Marcus Bellini. He just pulled through the front gates with four SUVs. He has twenty armed men with him."
Luca’s expression instantly turned to stone. "And?"
"And," Daniel swallowed, looking directly at me. "He says he isn't leaving until you hand over the housekeeper."
Me.
My blood ran cold.
"Why does he want Emma?" Luca asked, his voice deadly quiet.
Daniel looked at the floor, then back up at Luca.
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"Because, sir... Marcus Bellini says Emma is his daughter."
TITLE: THE COAT FROM THE WINTER OF EXILE
