Chapter 9 – THE GOLD WATCH IN THE ENVELOPE

I stared at the slip of paper in my hand, the bright Sunday sunshine suddenly feeling cold.

Rachel. If you are reading this, it means Luca Moretti lied to you about how I died.

The cheering of the baseball crowd faded into a distant hum. Beside me, Luca was watching my face, his relaxed demeanor instantly shifting back into the hyper-alert stance of a man who senses danger.

“Rachel?” Luca asked, his voice low. “What does it say?”

I couldn’t speak. I looked down at the heavy gold pocket watch resting in my palm. I turned it over. Engraved on the back of the gold casing was a crest—a roaring lion holding a sword.

It wasn’t the Moretti family crest.

“Where did you get this?” I asked Coach Robert, my voice trembling.

Robert shifted uncomfortably, wiping his hands on his baseball pants. “I told you, it was stuffed behind the filing cabinet in the coach’s office. It looked like it had been wedged back there for years. The cleaners must have knocked it loose when they were vacuuming yesterday.”

I looked at my mother sitting beside me on the bleachers. She was staring at the gold watch, her face completely drained of color.

“Mom?” I whispered. “Do you know what this is?”

My mother swallowed hard, clutching her blanket. “That… that watch belonged to your father, Rachel. He wore it every day. But he lost it the week before he died.”

I turned slowly to face Luca.

He was staring at the gold watch with a look of absolute, unadulterated shock. For the first time since I met him, the powerful, untouchable Luca Moretti looked terrified.

“Let me see the note, Rachel,” Luca said, reaching his hand out.

I pulled the envelope back, pressing it against my chest. “No. You told me my father died trying to save your dad from a car bomb. You told me he was a hero.”

“He was,” Luca insisted, his dark eyes pleading with me. “Rachel, I swear to God, I told you the truth.”

“Then why did my dad write this?” I shoved the piece of paper toward him.

Luca read the messy handwriting. The color drained from his face. He looked at the gold watch, then at the note, and finally at Coach Robert.

“Robert,” Luca said, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. “Who had access to that office before you?”

Robert hesitated. “Just the former league president. He retired five years ago.”

“What was his name?”

“Arthur Bellini,” Robert answered quietly. “Vanessa’s father.”

The air between us completely shattered.

Vanessa’s father. The patriarch of the family that had just tried to destroy Luca. He had been the one hiding my father’s watch.

“Luca,” I said, my voice shaking with rising anger and confusion. “Whose crest is on the back of this watch?”

Luca closed his eyes, taking a deep, ragged breath. When he opened them, the raw pain in his expression broke my heart.

“It’s the crest of the Chicago Syndicate,” Luca said softly. “The highest-ranking council in the underworld.”

“My father was a mechanic,” I cried.

“Your father was the head of the Syndicate,” Luca corrected, his voice heavy with a secret he had carried for over a decade. “He wasn’t forced to build that bomb, Rachel. He was the one who ordered the hit on my family. He was the Boss of Bosses.”

I stumbled backward, hitting the metal railing of the bleachers. The world spun.

My sweet father. The man who taught me how to ride a bike. The man who smelled like motor oil. He wasn’t a victim. He was the most dangerous man in Chicago.

“That’s a lie,” I sobbed, looking at my mother. “Mom, tell him it’s a lie!”

My mother was crying silently. “He’s telling the truth, Rachel. We hid it from you to protect you. When your father realized the bomb was a mistake… when he realized innocent people were in the car… he tried to stop it. He died trying to fix his own terrible mistake.”

I felt like I was suffocating. I looked at Luca.

“If my father killed your father,” I whispered, tears streaming down my face. “Then why did you protect me? Why did you bring me into your home? Why did you give me a job?”

Luca stepped closer, his dark eyes shining with unspoken emotion. “Because when your father died, the Syndicate fractured. The Bellini family took power. And they put a hit out on the daughter of the former boss to ensure the bloodline ended.”

He reached out, gently wrapping his strong hands around my trembling shoulders.

“I didn’t bring you in to punish you, Rachel,” Luca whispered fiercely. “I brought you in to hide you in plain sight. I brought you into the most heavily guarded mansion in Chicago so the Bellinis could never find you.”

I stared at him, overwhelmed by the magnitude of what he had done. He had spent his life protecting the daughter of the man who ruined his family.

Before I could process it, a loud, panicked shout echoed from the baseball field.

“Hey! Stop him!”

We all whipped around.

A man dressed in a dark groundskeeper uniform was sprinting across the outfield grass. And tucked firmly under his arm, kicking and screaming, was Caleb.