Chapter 2 – THE GHOST IN THE SILVER WATCH

I stared at the faded photograph in the silver casing.

The room began to spin.

It was a picture of a young woman with dark, curled hair, standing in front of this very mansion.

She wore a simple white apron over a gray dress.

She looked exactly like me.

But it wasn’t me.

“That’s… that’s not me,” I whispered, my voice trembling.

Luca stepped closer, his dark eyes searching my face.

“Then who is it?”

I reached up, my fingers brushing the cheap silver chain I always wore around my neck.

“It’s my grandmother. Rosa.”

A collective murmur ripped through the forty guests at the dining table.

Michael wiped his eyes, staring at the watch. “Rosa? Dad’s old housekeeper? She worked for us when we were kids.”

I nodded slowly. “She told me she worked for a wealthy family in Chicago. But she never told me their name. She made me promise never to look for them.”

Vanessa scoffed loudly, the sound echoing in the tense room.

“Oh, what a brilliant performance,” she sneered. “The poor, innocent little maid doesn’t know she’s working for the family her grandmother robbed.”

I whipped my head toward her. “My grandmother was an honest woman!”

“Your grandmother was a thief,” Vanessa snapped. “She disappeared twenty years ago, the exact same week two million dollars went missing from the Moretti offshore accounts. That’s why your father kept her picture, Luca. Not out of love. As a target.”

Luca didn’t look at Vanessa. He kept his eyes on me.

“My father never reported the money stolen,” Luca said quietly.

“Because he was protecting the family name!” Vanessa argued.

“No.” Giovanni’s heavy voice cut through the argument.

The older Italian man walked around the table, standing beside Michael.

“Enzo Moretti did not report the money stolen because Rosa did not steal it.”

Vanessa crossed her arms. “Then where did it go, Giovanni? Because I have the bank records.”

Giovanni looked at Luca with deep sorrow.

“Your father gave it to her, Luca. To hide it.”

Luca frowned, the tattoos on his neck shifting as he swallowed.

“Hide it from who?”

“From the man who is backing Vanessa tonight,” Giovanni said.

Vanessa’s confidence finally cracked. She lunged forward, trying to grab the watch from Luca’s hand, but Luca easily caught her wrist in mid-air.

“Don’t touch me,” Luca warned, his voice like ice.

He dropped her hand and looked back at the watch.

“Giovanni, tell me everything.”

Giovanni hesitated, glancing at the guests. “This is family business, Luca. The authorities—”

“Everyone stays exactly where they are,” Luca ordered.

He turned the watch over in his hand, feeling the edges of the metal.

“There’s something else in here,” Luca muttered.

He pressed a hidden hinge on the side of the casing.

The back panel of the watch clicked and popped open.

A small, tightly folded piece of paper fell out, landing right in the pool of spilled red wine on the marble floor.

I knelt down instantly, my stained apron brushing the glass shards, and carefully picked it up.

The edges were stained crimson, but the ink was still legible.

I unfolded it.

It wasn’t a bank note.

It was a child’s drawing, done in blue crayon.

It showed a house surrounded by bright orange scribbles. Fire.

“Emily?” Luca asked gently. “What is it?”

I looked up at him, my hands shaking uncontrollably.

“It’s a drawing,” I whispered.

I turned it around for him to see.

At the bottom of the page, written in shaky, childish handwriting, were three words:

Michael did it.