Chapter 3 – [THE GOLD WATCH WITH THE CRACKED GLASS]
For a moment, the only sound in the massive restaurant was my son’s ragged breathing. Tyler was still on his knees, clutching the photograph of the daughter he thought he had buried.
Luca stopped moving.
“Vanessa,” Luca said, his voice terrifyingly gentle. “Put the phone down on the table.”
“No!” she shrieked, backing toward the kitchen doors. “You don’t understand! Silvio knew Sarah was carrying this junkie’s kid. He knew if Tyler ever got sober and remembered seeing Silvio’s SUV at the scene, he could put my uncle in prison! We kept the kid to make sure Tyler stayed broken!”
I felt a surge of adrenaline so powerful it blocked out my vision.
Six years. I had scrubbed this woman’s floors. I had ironed her clothes. I had thanked her for my paychecks, while she secretly held my grandchild hostage to protect a murderer.
I stood up. I didn’t care about my job. I didn’t care that her uncle was a crime boss.
I walked straight toward her.
“Patricia, stay back,” Luca warned.
But I didn’t stop. I walked up to Vanessa, looking directly into her panicked, cruel eyes.
“Where is my granddaughter?” I asked.
Vanessa smirked, though her hand holding the phone was shaking. “You’ll never find her, Patricia. She’s stashed in one of Silvio’s private foster homes. He moves her every six months. If I don’t walk out of here right now, I text Silvio, and you never see her again.”
I stared at her. Then I looked down at her hands.
She was clutching her purse against her chest. Tangled in the straps, spilling out of the side pocket, was a heavy gold chain. Attached to the end of it was a gold pocket watch.
The face of the watch was shattered.
My blood ran cold.
The air left my lungs in a violent rush.
It was a vintage 1940s Hamilton pocket watch. Engraved on the brass casing were the initials D.M.
David Miller.
“Where did you get that?” I whispered, my voice completely hollow.
Vanessa followed my gaze. She saw the watch dangling from her bag and quickly tried to shove it back inside.
“It’s an antique,” she snapped. “Mind your own business.”
I reached out and grabbed the chain, ripping it out of her bag.
Vanessa screamed, but I held the heavy gold timepiece in my palm. My thumb traced the shattered glass.
Ten years ago, the police knocked on my door. They told me my husband, a foreman at the city docks, had suffered a massive heart attack and fallen off the pier into the freezing water. They told me the impact on the rocks had shattered his watch, freezing the time of death at exactly 11:14 PM.
His body was recovered. But the watch was mysteriously missing from evidence.
“This is my husband’s watch,” I said, looking up at her. Tears streamed down my face. “He died ten years ago. It fell in the river with him.”
Vanessa stared at me. A sickening, cruel smile slowly spread across her face.
She knew she had leverage now. She knew she was holding all the cards.
“Your husband didn’t have a heart attack, Patricia,” Vanessa whispered maliciously. “And he didn’t fall off that pier by accident.”
I stopped breathing. “What?”
“David was a rat,” Vanessa spat. “He found out my uncle was using the docks to smuggle prescription pills into the city. The same pills your pathetic son got addicted to.”
Tyler let out a choked gasp behind me.
“David threatened to go to the police,” Vanessa continued, her eyes gleaming with dark triumph. “So Silvio met him on the pier. He took that watch right out of David’s pocket as a souvenir.”
I couldn’t feel my hands. The room spun violently.
The love of my life hadn’t abandoned us. He had died trying to stop the very drugs that eventually ruined our son.
“And you know what the best part is?” Vanessa laughed, looking past me toward Luca. “Silvio didn’t do it alone. Did you, Luca?”
Luca went rigidly still. “What are you talking about?”
Vanessa’s smile widened into something demonic. “Silvio didn’t own the docks ten years ago, Luca. Your father did. Your father ordered the hit on David Miller. My uncle just pulled the trigger.”
