The Watch Under the Pillow

“Leave?” I gasped, staring at Luca.

He stood in the doorway of the greenhouse, bleeding from the head, a gun pointed at his fiancée, telling me I was fired.

“You heard me,” Luca said. His voice was a flat, dead monotone. “Take your things and get off my property.”

Vanessa let out a breathless, triumphant laugh. She smoothed the front of her silk robe, recovering her composure with terrifying speed.

“Finally,” she sneered. “Some sense.”

“Luca, please,” I begged, pulling Leo closer to me. The little boy was trembling, his fingers digging into my apron. “You can’t leave him with her.”

Luca’s eyes flicked to Leo, but his expression didn’t soften. “Daniel,” he barked at the security guard writhing on the dirt floor. “Get up.”

Daniel groaned, clutching his shattered knee.

“Take the boy back to the nursery,” Luca commanded.

“No!” I screamed, stepping in front of Leo.

Before I could fight, Martin Hale grabbed my arm. His grip was like iron. “Don’t, Rachel,” he hissed in my ear. “Look at his eyes.”

I looked at Luca.

Beneath the cold, dead mask, his dark eyes were screaming a completely different command.

Trust me.

Hale pulled me toward the door. I fought him, looking back as Daniel limped over and ripped Leo from my side. The boy didn’t scream. He just stared at me, completely mute, his face a mask of pure terror.

“Get out, Rachel,” Luca said, his gun never wavering from Vanessa.

Hale dragged me out of the greenhouse and into the cold October rain. We ran across the lawn toward the staff quarters.

“He’s letting her win!” I sobbed, struggling against Hale’s grip. “He’s letting her take Leo!”

“He is keeping you alive,” Hale snapped, shoving me through the side door of the staff building. The hallway was empty; the other servants were asleep.

Hale pushed me into my small bedroom and locked the door behind us.

“Pack,” he ordered.

“I’m not leaving Leo.”

“If you stay, Vanessa will kill you, and then she will kill the boy,” Hale said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “Luca knows that. He fired you to remove the target from your back.”

I stood frozen in the center of the room. My mind was spinning. The fake pawn receipt. The blood in the hallway. The gun.

My eyes drifted to my small, twin-sized bed.

Lying perfectly in the center of the thin quilt was a heavy wool coat.

Not the cashmere one from the greenhouse. This was a dark, weather-beaten peacoat. Luca’s everyday coat.

I walked over to it. I reached into the right pocket.

My fingers brushed against a piece of folded stationary.

I pulled it out and opened it. It was written in Luca’s sharp, jagged handwriting.

Don’t leave the estate. Go to the guest house. Wait for me. Trust no one.

I looked up at Hale. My father.

Trust no one.

“What is it?” Hale asked, stepping toward me.

I crumpled the note in my fist and shoved it deep into my apron pocket. “Nothing. Just… an old grocery list.”

Hale’s eyes narrowed slightly, but he didn’t push. “Get a bag. We need to go.”

“I need to get my savings,” I lied. “It’s in the main house. In my locker.”

“Forget the money, Rachel. I have money.”

“It’s not just money,” I said, looking him dead in the eye. “It’s my mother’s ring. I’m not leaving without it.”

Hale hesitated at the mention of my mother. Guilt flashed across his face. “Five minutes. I’ll wait by the service gate.”

“Okay.”

He slipped out the door.

I didn’t go to the service gate.

I grabbed my raincoat and slipped out the window, dropping into the wet bushes below. I stayed in the shadows, creeping toward the south edge of the property, where the old, stone guest house sat empty.

The rain was coming down harder now, washing away the sound of my footsteps.

I reached the heavy oak door of the guest house. It was unlocked.

I slipped inside, closing it silently behind me.

The house was pitch black and smelled of dust and lemon polish. I stood perfectly still in the foyer, letting my eyes adjust to the dark.

“You shouldn’t be here, Rachel.”

I gasped, spinning around.

A match flared in the darkness of the living room, illuminating a stern, deeply lined face.

Mrs. Carter. The head housekeeper.

She calmly lit a kerosene lamp on the side table. As the yellow light filled the room, I saw what she was holding in her other hand.

A sleek, silver revolver.

“Mrs. Carter,” I breathed, raising my hands. “Luca told me to come here.”

“I know,” the old woman said, keeping the gun leveled at my chest. “He tells me everything.”

She gestured with the barrel toward a wingback chair. “Sit.”

I sat on the very edge of the cushion. My heart was beating so fast I felt dizzy.

“You’ve caused quite a mess, girl,” Mrs. Carter said, leaning against the fireplace mantel. “In eleven months, you’ve undone four years of careful planning.”

“I didn’t do anything! Vanessa is the one stealing!”

“Vanessa,” Mrs. Carter scoffed, a sound full of venom. “Vanessa is a parasite. A pawn. She steals trinkets because she’s desperate to pay off her debts before the wedding. But she isn’t the threat.”

“Then who is?”

Mrs. Carter looked at me for a long time. The kerosene light cast deep shadows across her face, making her look ancient and dangerous.

“You are,” she said simply.

I stared at her. “Me?”

She walked over to a heavy oak desk in the corner. Keeping the gun pointed at me, she reached into her apron pocket and pulled out a small, ornate brass key.

She inserted it into the top drawer of the desk and turned it.

She pulled out a thick, leather-bound ledger and tossed it onto the coffee table in front of me.

“Open it,” she ordered.

I reached out with trembling hands and flipped open the heavy cover.

The pages were filled with columns of numbers, dates, and names. But it wasn’t an accounting ledger for the estate.

It was a list of payouts. Massive sums of money. Millions of dollars.

And next to every single payout, in the column marked 'Recipient', was the same name.

Martin Hale.

I felt the blood drain from my face.

“Your father,” Mrs. Carter said, her voice dripping with disgust, “has been blackmailing the Moretti family for twenty-nine years.”

“Blackmailing them for what?” I whispered.

Mrs. Carter stepped closer, the gun unwavering.

“For keeping the secret of what really happened the night your mother died.”

Before I could ask what she meant, a floorboard creaked in the hallway above us.

Mrs. Carter’s head snapped up.

Someone else was in the guest house.

“Stay down,” she hissed, turning the gun toward the ceiling.

A loud, booming voice echoed from the top of the stairs.

“Well, Margaret. It looks like you found the leak.”

I froze.

I knew that voice.

Walking slowly down the stairs, stepping into the lamplight, was a man I hadn't seen since I was a child. The man who had taken my family’s house when my mother died.

Vincenzo Romano.

The head of the rival family.

He smiled at me, a cold, predatory grin.