The Watch Under the Pillow

“You poisoned him,” I breathed, the manila envelope slipping from my fingers.

Vanessa’s smile widened. It was a grotesque, triumphant expression. “Don’t be so melodramatic. I simply helped him find the peace he so desperately needed. Running an empire is exhausting work.”

She tightened her grip on Leo’s collar. The boy didn’t cry. His eyes were completely hollow, staring past me at the wall. The fight had entirely left him.

“Bring her,” Vanessa ordered Daniel, turning on her heel and dragging Leo into the hallway.

Daniel jabbed the barrel of his gun into my spine. “Move.”

I walked. My mind raced, searching for any way out. If Luca was dead, the estate belonged to Vanessa. With Romano’s men swarming the grounds, there was no one left to call.

Daniel marched me down the grand staircase and into the main dining room.

The room looked like a war zone. The beautiful white tablecloths from the engagement dinner had been ripped away. The crystal centerpieces were smashed on the marble floor.

Sitting at the head of the long oak table, exactly where Luca had sat hours earlier, was Vincenzo Romano.

He was pouring himself a glass of Luca’s most expensive scotch.

Vanessa walked in and pushed Leo roughly toward a corner chair. “Sit there and be quiet, you little brat.”

Leo scrambled into the chair, pulling his knees to his chest.

Romano smiled as Vanessa approached him. “Ah, my brilliant girl. Is it done?”

“Luca is dead in his study,” Vanessa said proudly. “Daniel confirmed it. The poison acted perfectly.”

Romano raised his glass in a mock toast. “To the new Queen of the city.” He took a sip, then his eyes slid to me. “And what about the loose end?”

“She found the surveillance photos in the nursery,” Daniel grunted, pushing me forward so I stumbled into the center of the room. “She knows everything.”

Vanessa sneered. “It doesn’t matter what she knows. She won’t be leaving this room.”

Romano set his glass down. He looked at me with cold, reptilian amusement. “Such a shame. You look so much like her, you know. Your mother.”

I forced myself to stand tall, despite the violent shaking in my legs. “You killed her, didn’t you? You killed my mother.”

Romano sighed. “I didn’t kill her, Little Bird. Martin Hale killed her. She was going to go to the police and expose Hale’s little blackmail operation against the Morettis. Hale couldn’t allow that. He cut the brakes on her car.”

The breath left my lungs.

Hale. The man who had pretended to be my father.

“Luca’s father knew,” Romano continued casually. “He knew Hale did it. But Hale had leverage, so the Morettis covered it up. They let your mother die a forgotten statistic, and they paid Hale millions to keep quiet. And you, sweet Rachel, were tossed into the foster system, blissfully unaware that your mother’s blood paid for this very estate.”

I looked at the opulent dining room. The crystal chandeliers. The velvet drapes. It all made me sick.

“Why did Luca hire me?” I asked, my voice cracking.

“Guilt,” Vanessa spat. “Luca found out what his father had done. He tracked you down. He brought you here to keep an eye on you. A pathetic attempt at penance. He thought he could protect you from Hale.”

Vanessa walked toward me, her heels clicking sharply on the marble. She stopped inches from my face.

“But he couldn’t even protect himself,” she whispered.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out the heavy silver pocket watch. Luca’s grandfather’s watch. The one Leo loved.

She tossed it onto the floor at my feet.

“Pick it up,” she ordered.

I stared at it. I didn’t move.

Daniel jammed the gun into the back of my head. “Pick it up.”

I slowly bent down and picked up the heavy silver watch.

“Now,” Vanessa said, pulling a silenced pistol from the waistband of her skirt. She aimed it squarely at my chest. “Open the casing. Take out the glass face. Use it to cut your wrists.”

I froze. “What?”

“You are a desperate, impoverished maid who stole family heirlooms,” Vanessa recited in a bored tone. “When Luca caught you, you poisoned him. Then, overcome with guilt and fear, you took your own life.”

She cocked the hammer of the gun.

“Do it, Rachel. Or Daniel shoots the boy in the head right now.”

My eyes darted to Leo. He was staring at me, tears silently streaming down his pale cheeks.

I looked at the silver watch in my hand.

Then I looked at the cold, dead eyes of Vincenzo Romano.

I didn’t have a choice.

I pressed my thumb against the clasp of the watch and popped the silver lid open.

But there was no glass face inside.

There were no gears. There were no hands to tell the time.

The inside of the watch had been completely hollowed out.

And resting perfectly inside the circular silver casing was a tiny, flashing red light.

I stared at it. It was blinking rapidly.

A GPS transmitter.

With an audio bug attached.

Vanessa frowned, noticing my hesitation. “What are you waiting for? Break the glass.”

Before I could speak, a voice boomed from the shadows of the hallway.

“There is no glass, Vanessa.”

Everyone in the room froze.

Romano dropped his scotch glass. It shattered on the marble.

Walking slowly into the dining room, wiping a streak of dried blood from his forehead with a pristine white handkerchief, was Luca Moretti.

He wasn’t dead.

He was flanked by twelve heavily armed men in black tactical gear. But these weren’t estate security. They weren’t Romano’s men.

They wore the insignia of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

“You’re right about one thing, Vincenzo,” Luca said, his voice echoing like thunder in the silent room. “My father was a coward. He paid a blackmailer to hide a murder. I am not my father.”

Luca pointed to the watch in my hand.

“Everything you’ve said in this room for the last twenty minutes has been recorded by the FBI. Including your confession to covering up a murder, and Vanessa’s confession to attempted murder.”

Vanessa’s face contorted in pure panic. She whipped her gun toward Luca.

She never got the chance to pull the trigger.

A federal agent stepped forward and struck her hard across the wrist with a baton. The gun clattered to the floor. Vanessa shrieked as two agents drove her to her knees and clamped heavy steel handcuffs on her wrists.

Daniel dropped his weapon and fell to his knees, throwing his hands in the air.

Vincenzo Romano didn’t move. He sat at the head of the table, staring at Luca with a mixture of shock and grudging respect.

“You wore a wire in your own house,” Romano said quietly.

“I put a bug in my grandfather’s watch,” Luca corrected, stepping fully into the light. “I knew Vanessa would steal it eventually. I knew she’d bring it to you. I just had to wait for you to admit on tape that she belonged to you.”

Luca turned his gaze to Vanessa, who was sobbing, struggling against the agents.

“You thought you poisoned my scotch,” Luca said coldly. “I poured that glass down the sink three hours ago. The blood on the floor? From a cut I gave myself when you sent Daniel to kill me.”

Luca walked past the agents. He didn’t look at Romano. He walked straight toward me.

His eyes were soft. The cold, dead mask was entirely gone.

He gently took the silver watch from my trembling hands.