Chapter 3 - THE PHOTOGRAPH
The drive to Milwaukee took exactly ninety minutes, and Luca Moretti did not speak for eighty-nine of them.
He drove his black armored SUV himself. Marco followed in a second vehicle with four armed men.
I sat in the passenger seat, my hands trembling in my lap.
My mind raced, trying to piece together the shattered reality of the last two hours.
Vanessa Bellini. The scarred delivery man. The silver watch. And the photograph of my father with a mafia prince on the day he vanished.
Ask her what her father has been hiding in his basement for eight years.
My father was a simple man. A quiet, gentle clockmaker who loved black coffee and old jazz records. He had suffered a massive stroke three months ago, leaving him paralyzed on his right side and unable to speak.
He couldn't be involved in this. It was impossible.
But the photograph was real.
And the watch was real.
As we crossed the county line into Milwaukee, Luca finally broke the silence.
“When was the last time you went into the basement of the shop, Emma?”
His voice was terrifyingly calm.
I swallowed hard. “Never. Not since I was a teenager.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s just storage. Old grandfather clock casings, broken parts. My dad kept the door padlocked. He said it was dangerous because of the rusted metal and the old boiler.”
Luca kept his eyes on the dark highway.
“You didn’t think a padlocked basement was suspicious?”
“No,” I said defensively, my fear giving way to a sudden spike of anger. “Because my father isn't a criminal, Mr. Moretti. He’s a clockmaker. He fixed things. He didn't hurt people.”
Luca didn't react to my anger.
“Someone has been winding Daniel’s watch,” Luca said quietly. “Someone who knows mechanical movements. Someone who has kept it running perfectly for eight years.”
He looked at me, just for a second.
“Vanessa didn't find that watch in her father's belongings, Emma. She got it from yours.”
“No,” I whispered, staring out the window. “Vanessa came into the kitchen to yell at me about folding towels. Why would she be dealing with my father?”
“Because three months ago, your father had a stroke,” Luca said, his logic cutting through the dark like a blade. “He stopped working. He stopped paying his bills. You started sending him money from your paycheck.”
I looked at him, stunned. “How do you know that?”
“I run a syndicate, Emma. I know the finances of everyone who sleeps under my roof.” Luca turned the steering wheel, taking the exit toward my childhood neighborhood. “When your father had his stroke, whatever arrangement he had to keep Daniel’s watch running was broken. Vanessa found out. She used the courier to retrieve it.”
It made a sickening kind of sense.
But it didn't explain the most important question.
“Why would Vanessa hide the watch?” I asked. “If she found something belonging to your missing brother, why wouldn't she just give it to you immediately? Why pretend she bought it from a collector?”
Luca parked the SUV half a block away from the dark, quiet storefront of REED & SON CLOCKWORKS.
He killed the engine. The headlights turned off, plunging us into darkness.
“Because,” Luca said, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper, “if she admitted where she got it, I would ask how she knew to look in your father’s shop. And I would ask how she knew Daniel was there eight years ago.”
A reversal hit me like a physical blow.
Vanessa wasn't just hiding a watch.
She was hiding her involvement in Daniel's disappearance.
Luca unbuckled his seatbelt. He drew a heavy black handgun from his shoulder holster and checked the chamber.
“Stay behind me,” he ordered.
I nodded, too terrified to speak.
We got out of the car. The crisp night air bit at my cheeks. Marco and his men materialized from the shadows, moving with silent, terrifying precision.
We approached the front door of the shop.
My parents lived in the small apartment upstairs. A single light was on in their living room window. My mother was likely awake, sitting by my father’s medical bed.
Luca didn't knock on the apartment door.
He walked straight to the shop entrance.
“Do you have a key?” he asked.
I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out my keychain. My hands were shaking so badly I dropped it twice before unlocking the deadbolt.
The bell above the door jingled cheerfully. It sounded horribly out of place.
The shop smelled like dust, brass polish, and old wood. Clocks covered every wall, their pendulums swinging in disjointed rhythms.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
Luca didn't look at the clocks.
He walked straight to the back of the shop, past the main counter, to a heavy oak door at the end of the hallway.
The basement door.
There was a heavy brass padlock on it.
Luca didn't ask for a key. He raised his weapon and fired a single, suppressed shot directly into the lock.
It shattered.
I gasped, covering my ears.
Luca kicked the door open. It creaked loudly on old hinges.
A steep set of wooden stairs disappeared into total darkness.
Marco handed Luca a heavy tactical flashlight.
“Stay close,” Luca told me.
We walked down the stairs. The air grew colder, smelling of damp earth and rust.
When we reached the bottom, Luca swept the flashlight across the room.
It was exactly as I remembered. Stacks of broken clock casings, dusty tarps, and an old iron boiler.
“There’s nothing here,” I whispered, desperate for my father to be innocent. “See? It’s just junk.”
Luca didn't answer. He walked toward the far wall, where a massive, antique grandfather clock stood. It was at least eight feet tall, carved from dark mahogany.
Luca studied the floor in front of it.
“The dust,” he said softly.
I looked. The floor was covered in an inch of gray dust. Except for two sweeping, curved lines extending outward from the base of the clock.
Marks made by heavy wood scraping against concrete.
The clock wasn't just sitting there. It was a door.
Luca handed his gun to Marco. He gripped the edge of the heavy mahogany casing and pulled.
The entire clock swung outward on hidden hinges, revealing a dark, narrow corridor carved into the earth behind the basement wall.
My breath caught in my throat.
My father had built a secret room.
Luca drew his weapon again. He stepped into the corridor, the flashlight cutting through the gloom.
I followed, my heart pounding so hard it hurt my ribs.
At the end of the short corridor was a heavy steel door. It wasn't locked.
Luca pushed it open.
The beam of the flashlight illuminated a small, windowless room.
It looked like a medical facility.
There was an IV stand, a heart monitor covered in a layer of dust, and a small refrigerator.
And in the center of the room, there was a bed.
The bed was perfectly made. The sheets were clean.
But it was empty.
Luca walked over to the bed. He reached out and touched the pillow.
“Someone was living here,” Luca said, his voice raw with emotion. “For years.”
I stared at the room, my mind completely breaking.
My gentle, quiet father hadn't just repaired a watch.
He had been keeping a man prisoner in his basement for eight years.
Or... he had been hiding him.
“Look,” Marco said sharply, pointing his own flashlight at the small table next to the bed.
Resting on the table was a child’s drawing.
I stepped forward, my hands trembling.
It was a piece of white printer paper, colored with crayons. It depicted a tall man holding hands with a little girl.
Above them, written in clumsy, blocky letters, were the words:
I LOVE YOU UNCLE DANNY.
Luca stared at the paper. The color drained from his face completely.
“Emma,” Luca said, his voice barely a whisper. “Who drew this?”
I stared at the little girl in the drawing. She had brown curly hair and wore a bright yellow dress.
It was a dress I had bought for my niece, Lily, for her fifth birthday.
“My sister’s daughter,” I choked out, tears finally spilling over my eyelashes. “Lily.”
Luca turned to me, his eyes wide with a terrifying realization.
“Your sister,” Luca said slowly. “What was her name?”
“Sarah,” I whispered. “She died in a car accident six years ago.”
Luca looked back at the drawing. Then he looked at the empty bed.
“She didn't die in a car accident, Emma,” Luca said, his voice breaking. “Because six years ago, my brother Daniel secretly married a woman named Sarah.”
The room spun.
Daniel Moretti. The missing mafia prince.
He had married my sister.
And Lily... Lily was his daughter.
May you like
“Answer one,” Luca whispered, the pieces falling into a horrifying puzzle. “Open two.”
Suddenly, the heavy steel door behind us slammed shut with a deafening crash.
