Chapter 5 – The Silver Watch

The crackle of the fireplace was the only sound in the cabin.

Luca turned away from me, his eyes locking onto the silver watch dangling from my mother’s trembling fingers.

He walked slowly toward her, his face completely drained of color.

“That’s my father’s watch,” Luca whispered. “He wore it every day of his life. He was wearing it the night he died.”

“I know,” my mother said, tears welling in her eyes again. “I took it off his wrist.”

“You were there?” I asked, kneeling beside her chair. “Mom, you said you hadn’t seen Antonio Moretti in years.”

“I lied, Emmy. I had to.”

She looked at Luca, her expression filled with a haunting sorrow.

“Your father called me that night, Luca. He knew his heart was failing. He knew Carlo was making a move against him. He told me to come to the mansion through the servant’s entrance. He said he finally had the proof he needed to take Carlo down.”

“The ledger,” Mrs. Russo murmured from the kitchen counter.

“Yes,” my mother nodded. “But by the time I got to his study, he was already on the floor. Carlo Bellini was standing over him.”

Luca’s fists clenched so tightly his knuckles turned white.

“Carlo didn’t see me,” my mother continued. “He was frantically searching the desk. Then he heard the security guards coming, and he ran out to the balcony.”

She took a ragged breath of oxygen from the portable tank I had carried in.

“I ran to Antonio. He was gasping. He couldn’t speak. But he grabbed my hand, and he pressed this watch into my palm. He pointed to the back of it.”

Luca gently took the watch from her hand.

He turned it over.

There, engraved in the tarnished silver, were three numbers.

4 – 1 – 7

“It’s a combination,” Luca realized.

“For what?” I asked.

“For the safety deposit box at the First National Bank downtown,” Mrs. Russo answered, her eyes widening. “Antonio kept a private box there. He never trusted the mansion’s safes with his most valuable documents.”

Luca stared at the watch.

“The ledger in the cellar proves he paid your mother,” Luca said, piecing it together. “But whatever is in that bank box proves why. It proves Carlo murdered my mother.”

He looked up.

“If I take this to the Commission tomorrow morning, Carlo is a dead man.”

Suddenly, the roar of a high-powered engine shattered the silence outside.

Tires skidded on the gravel driveway.

Luca instantly grabbed his gun from the table and killed all the lights in the cabin.

“Get on the floor!” he ordered.

I pulled my mother down behind the heavy oak sofa. Mrs. Russo crouched behind the kitchen island.

Heavy footsteps pounded onto the wooden porch.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

Someone was hammering on the door.

“Luca!” a voice shouted from outside.

Luca didn’t lower his weapon. He kept it aimed directly at the deadbolt.

“Luca, it’s Matteo!” the voice yelled.

Luca hesitated. Matteo was his underboss. His most trusted friend.

“Come to the window with your hands up,” Luca shouted back.

A shadow moved across the front window. A man in a dark suit raised his empty hands into the moonlight.

Luca unlocked the door and pulled Matteo inside, immediately locking it behind him.

Matteo was bleeding from a cut above his eye. He looked panicked.

“They took the mansion,” Matteo panted, leaning against the wall. “Bellini’s men swarmed the gates. Half our captains defected to Carlo’s side. They think you lost your mind and kidnapped Vanessa to force a wedding.”

“Where is Vanessa?” Luca asked coldly.

“She’s with her father,” Matteo said. “They’re offering a five-million-dollar bounty on your head, Luca. To any man who brings you in.”

Matteo looked around the dark cabin and saw me kneeling on the floor.

“And they’re offering two million for the maid,” Matteo added grimly.

My stomach dropped. “Me? Why?”

“Because Vanessa told everyone you seduced Luca and orchestrated this whole thing to steal the Moretti fortune.”

I let out a shaky breath. Vanessa was spinning a narrative that made her the victim and me the manipulative villain.

“We have to leave the state,” Matteo said to Luca. “We can regroup in Chicago. Call in favors from the Outfit.”

“No,” Luca said flatly.

“Luca, we are outnumbered ten to one!”

“I am not running from the man who murdered my parents.”

Luca walked over to me. He reached down and offered me his hand.

I looked at his tattooed, scarred hand, and then up into his dark, relentless eyes.

I took it.

He pulled me to my feet.

“Tomorrow morning, the bank opens at 8:00 AM,” Luca said. “Emily and I are going into the city to empty that deposit box.”

“It’s a suicide mission,” Matteo warned. “Bellini has eyes on every bank in the territory.”

“Then we make a distraction,” Luca said.

He looked at Matteo. “Take my SUV. Drive it to the shipping ports on the east side. Burn one of Bellini’s warehouses to the ground at exactly 7:55 AM. Make it loud.”

Matteo grinned, wiping the blood from his eye. “Now you’re talking, Boss.”

Luca turned to Mrs. Russo. “Keep her mother safe. Lock the cellar door here. Don’t open it for anyone but me.”

“God be with you, Luca,” the old woman whispered.

Luca looked at me.

“Are you ready to stop being a maid, Emily?”

I looked at the frosting stains still crusted on my jeans. I looked at the man who had risked his empire to save my mother’s life.

“I was never very good at it anyway,” I said.