Chapter 5 - THE POCKET WATCH
The hallway to the guest suites was eerily quiet.
The thick, plush carpet absorbed the sound of our footsteps. Dominic led the way, his gun raised. Anthony was right beside him. I followed a few paces behind, unable to stop myself. I needed to know why someone would try to kill a sweet old man and a nine-year-old girl.
Dominic stopped in front of the heavy oak door of Suite 4.
He didn’t knock.
He kicked the door right below the handle. The wood splintered, and the door flew open, crashing against the wall.
The room was dark, illuminated only by the city lights shining through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Sitting in a leather armchair by the window, calmly sipping a glass of bourbon, was Rosa Romano.
She was forty years old, dressed in a sharp white pantsuit. She looked exactly like Dominic—dark hair, sharp jawline, cold, calculating eyes.
She didn’t flinch when the door crashed open. She just took another sip of her drink.
“Hello, Dominic,” she said smoothly. “I heard the gunshot. I assume Marco missed.”
“Marco,” Dominic repeated, his voice vibrating with lethal anger. “The man with the scar.”
“He was always a bit clumsy,” Rosa sighed, setting her glass down on a side table.
Anthony pushed past Dominic, his face contorted in disbelief.
“Rosa, what the hell is this? You tried to kill Silvio! You tried to frame me!”
Rosa stood up slowly, smoothing the creases in her white trousers.
“I didn’t try to kill Silvio, Anthony. I had to kill him. And framing you was just business.”
“Business?” Dominic stepped into the room, the barrel of his gun pointing squarely at his sister’s chest. “You’re my sister.”
“And you are running our family into the ground, Dom,” she spat, her calm facade cracking. “You went soft after Elena died. You started turning down the union contracts. You started investing in tech startups and charities. You want to be a legitimate businessman, Dominic? You’re making us weak!”
“So you aligned with Salerno?” Anthony demanded.
Rosa laughed bitterly. “I didn’t align with Salerno. I bought Salerno’s men to do my dirty work. When the smoke cleared tonight, you were supposed to be locked up for Silvio’s murder, and Dominic was supposed to look like a fool whose own fiancée betrayed him.”
She looked directly at Dominic.
“I was going to step in, take control of the family board, and put us back on top. Where our father wanted us.”
“You are insane,” Dominic said softly.
“I’m a survivor,” Rosa corrected.
She reached into the pocket of her blazer.
Dominic tensed, his finger tightening on the trigger.
But Rosa didn’t pull out a gun. She pulled out an old, tarnished gold pocket watch.
I recognized it instantly. It was the antique watch Dominic kept in a glass display case in his study.
“You think you can just shoot me, Dom?” Rosa asked, holding the watch up by its gold chain. “Silvio found out what I was doing. He found the offshore accounts where I’ve been moving the family’s liquid cash for the past year. Forty million dollars, Dominic.”
Anthony gasped.
“He locked the routing numbers in a Swiss deposit box,” Rosa continued, a desperate smile spreading across her face. “And the only key to that box… was hidden inside this watch. The watch Silvio gave you.”
She popped the clasp of the pocket watch open.
“Let me walk out of here tonight, Dominic. Let me get on my private jet, and I’ll leave the key on the table. You keep the money, I keep my life. We never see each other again.”
Dominic stared at her. His eyes were dead.
“You shot at my daughter,” he said softly.
“It was an accident!” Rosa pleaded, stepping back. “Marco panicked!”
“Open the watch, Rosa,” Dominic commanded.
Rosa smiled, thinking she had won. She held the watch out and opened the front casing to reveal the hollow compartment where the tiny brass safety deposit key should be.
Her smile vanished.
The compartment was completely empty.
“What?” Rosa gasped, shaking the watch frantically. “Where is it? He told me he hid it in here!”
The reversal hit her like a freight train.
She didn’t have the leverage. She had nothing.
A small voice spoke from the doorway behind me.
“Are you looking for this, Auntie Rosa?”
We all spun around.
Mia was standing in the doorway, having slipped away from the safe room guards.
In her tiny, outstretched palm was a small, intricately carved brass key.
Rosa’s face twisted in pure, animalistic panic.
“Give that to me, you little brat!” Rosa shrieked, lunging forward.
She grabbed a heavy brass lamp from the nightstand and swung it wildly toward Mia.
I didn’t hesitate.
I grabbed the heavy oak chair sitting near the door and shoved it directly into Rosa’s path.
Rosa tripped over the legs, crying out in pain as she crashed hard onto the hardwood floor, the lamp shattering against the wall.
Before she could get up, Dominic was on top of her.
He didn’t shoot her. He drove his knee into her back, pinning her arms, pressing her face into the carpet.
“Anthony,” Dominic breathed heavily. “Call the police. Tell them we have the person who poisoned Silvio.”
Anthony pulled out his phone, his hands shaking.
Rosa struggled against the floor, spitting blood from her busted lip.
“You think this is over, Dominic?” she laughed hysterically. “It’s not over! You don’t know the whole truth!”
Dominic yanked her head back by her hair. “What truth?”
Rosa looked at him, her eyes completely unhinged.
“You think Elena died in a car crash, Dom? You think it was black ice on the highway?”
The room went completely silent.
Mia clutched the brass key to her chest, her eyes wide.
Rosa smiled, her teeth stained with blood.
“She was leaving you, Dominic. She found out about the offshore accounts two years ago. She was going to the Feds. I had Marco cut her brake lines.”
Dominic stopped breathing.
His wife. The love of his life. Murdered by his own sister.
He slowly let go of Rosa’s hair. He stood up, backing away from her. His hands were shaking violently. He looked down at his gun.
“Dom, no,” Anthony pleaded, dropping his phone. “Don’t do it. Let the cops have her. If you shoot her, you cross a line you can never come back from.”
Dominic raised the gun, pointing it right at Rosa’s head.
“She killed Elena.”
“Daddy.”
The soft, tiny voice cut through the heavy air of the room.
Dominic looked at Mia.
She walked over to him, gently wrapping her small arms around his waist.
“Mommy wouldn’t want you to be a bad man,” Mia whispered.
Dominic stared at his daughter. A tear slipped down his cheek, landing on Mia’s hair.
Slowly, agonizingly, he lowered the weapon.
He looked at Anthony. “Hold her here until the police arrive.”
Dominic picked Mia up, burying his face in her shoulder, and walked out of the room.
As he passed me, a heavy silence lingered. The immediate threat was gone.
May you like
But as I looked down at the shattered lamp on the floor, I noticed something hidden beneath the lampshade.
An envelope. Addressed to me.
