The Watch Under the Pillow

“Hello, Little Bird.”

The nickname hit me like a physical blow. Vincenzo Romano stood at the bottom of the stairs, impeccably dressed in a tailored charcoal suit, looking completely out of place in the dusty guest house.

Mrs. Carter didn’t lower her gun. She kept it aimed squarely at Romano’s chest.

“You shouldn’t be here, Vincenzo,” Mrs. Carter said. Her voice was steady, but I could see a slight tremor in her hands.

Romano chuckled, stepping further into the room. He completely ignored the weapon pointed at him. “It’s my daughter’s wedding this weekend, Margaret. Where else would I be?”

My brain short-circuited.

Daughter.

Vanessa wasn’t just a woman with a gambling debt to the Romanos. She was Vincenzo Romano’s daughter.

“She’s not your daughter,” Mrs. Carter spat. “She’s a bastard you bought and paid for to infiltrate this house.”

“Family is defined by loyalty, not blood,” Romano said smoothly. His dark eyes flicked to me. “Isn’t that right, Rachel? Your father understands that perfectly. He’s been very loyal to his own survival.”

I looked down at the leather ledger on the table. The millions of dollars paid to Martin Hale.

“My father didn’t know I was here,” I lied, my voice shaking. “He just found me today.”

Romano threw his head back and laughed. It was a rich, booming sound that made my stomach turn.

“Oh, Little Bird. Your father is the one who placed you here.”

I stared at him. “No. That’s a lie.”

“Is it?” Romano walked to the coffee table and tapped a thick finger against the open ledger. “Martin Hale has been bleeding the Moretti family dry for three decades. But Luca’s father recently died, and Luca cut off the payments. He refused to honor the old blackmail.”

Romano leaned in close to me. He smelled of expensive cologne and cigar smoke.

“So, Martin needed leverage. He found his abandoned daughter, arranged for her to get a job at the estate, and waited. He knew Luca would eventually figure out who you were. He knew Luca would try to protect you. Because Luca suffers from the same fatal flaw his father did.”

“What flaw?” I whispered.

“Guilt,” Romano smiled.

Before he could say another word, the front door of the guest house burst open.

Rain and wind tore into the room, blowing out the kerosene lamp.

In the sudden, pitch-black darkness, three things happened at once.

A gunshot deafened me.

Someone grabbed me by the back of my coat collar and yanked me off the chair.

And Mrs. Carter screamed.

I hit the floor hard, scrambling backward in the dark. A flashlight beam clicked on, sweeping wildly across the room.

The beam settled on Mrs. Carter. She was slumped against the mantelpiece, clutching her shoulder. Blood was seeping through her fingers.

Standing in the doorway, holding the smoking gun, was Martin Hale.

“Get up, Rachel!” Hale yelled, keeping his gun aimed at the darkness where Romano had been standing. “We’re leaving!”

“You shot her!” I screamed, crawling toward the old woman.

“She was going to kill you!” Hale shouted.

“How touching,” Romano’s voice drifted from the shadows near the kitchen. “The rat returns for his cheese.”

Hale fired blindly into the dark. Wood splintered. Romano laughed.

“Rachel, go!” Hale grabbed my arm and hauled me toward the open door.

I fought him. I fought him with everything I had. I kicked his shin, twisted out of his grip, and ran back to Mrs. Carter. I pressed my hands over the bleeding wound on her shoulder.

“You’re a fool, girl,” Mrs. Carter wheezed, her hand weakly gripping my wrist. “Go to the nursery. The floorboard.”

“What?” I asked frantically.

“Under his bed,” she gasped. “The floorboard. Luca hid it there. The proof.”

Hale grabbed me again, this time violently. He practically carried me out the door into the pouring rain.

“Let me go!” I screamed, thrashing against him.

He didn’t stop until we reached the edge of the woods. He pinned me against the rough bark of an oak tree.

“Listen to me!” Hale shouted over the storm. “Romano is going to kill everyone in that house tonight! Vanessa has already unlocked the gates for his men. Luca is dead. Mrs. Carter is dead. If you go back in there, you die too!”

I stared at the man who claimed to be my father. The man who had blackmailed a family, used me as a pawn, and just shot an old woman.

“Where is Leo?” I demanded.

Hale blinked, rain washing over his face. “What?”

“Where is the boy?!”

“Forget the boy!” Hale roared. “He’s a Moretti! He’s Romano’s problem now!”

I looked at him. I looked at the fear in his eyes. He wasn’t trying to save his daughter. He was trying to save his leverage.

I reached into my apron pocket. My fingers curled around the heavy bronze letter opener I had taken from Luca’s study.

I didn’t hesitate.

I drove the dull blade hard into Hale’s thigh.

He screamed, dropping me and clutching his leg.

I didn’t look back. I ran toward the main house as fast as my legs could carry me.

The estate was no longer silent.

As I burst through the kitchen doors, alarms were blaring. The backup generators had kicked on, bathing the hallways in harsh, red emergency light.

I heard shouting from the east wing. Men’s voices. Romano’s men.

I bolted up the servants' stairs, taking them two at a time. My lungs burned. My shoulder screamed in agony.

I reached the second floor and sprinted down the hall toward the nursery.

The door was wide open.

I ran inside. “Leo!”

The room was empty. The bed was overturned. Toys were scattered everywhere.

I dropped to my knees near the bed, remembering Mrs. Carter’s words. The floorboard. Under his bed.

I clawed at the edge of the heavy Persian rug, throwing it back. The hardwood floor looked perfectly normal. I ran my hands over the planks, searching for a gap.

My fingernails caught on a slight depression.

I pulled.

A short section of the floorboard popped up.

Inside the small, dark cavity was a manila envelope.

I pulled it out and tore it open.

Inside was a stack of glossy photographs.

I looked at the first one. It was a surveillance photo of Vanessa, sitting in a dark restaurant booth across from Vincenzo Romano. They were looking at a blueprint of the Moretti estate.

I flipped to the next one.

It was a photo of Daniel, the head of security, accepting a briefcase from one of Romano’s men.

Luca had known.

He had known about the betrayal for months. He had been building a case, waiting for the right moment to strike.

And then I looked at the third photograph.

It wasn’t surveillance. It was an old, faded Polaroid.

The exact same Polaroid that had been slid under the study door. My mother, holding me as a baby, standing next to Martin Hale.

But this version of the photo wasn’t cropped.

It showed the entire brick building behind them.

And standing in the background, leaning against a black car, watching my mother with a look of pure, agonizing heartbreak, was a young Luca Moretti.

I stared at the photo. My brain couldn’t process it.

If Luca had loved my mother… then Martin Hale wasn’t my father.

A cold, metallic click echoed behind me.

I froze.

“Put the envelope down, Rachel,” Daniel said.

I slowly turned my head. Daniel was standing in the doorway, leaning heavily on a cane, his shattered knee bandaged. He was pointing his gun directly at my head.

But he wasn’t alone.

Standing next to him, holding a terrified Leo by the collar of his pajamas, was Vanessa.

She smiled, holding up a small, empty glass vial.

“You see, Rachel,” Vanessa purred. “Luca didn’t just leave proof in the floorboards. He also left his scotch glass on his desk.”

She dropped the vial. It shattered on the floor.