Chapter 3 – THE GOLD POCKET WATCH

“No, no, no,” I sobbed, rushing to the bedside table.

I grabbed the gold pocket watch. It was heavy, cold, and undeniably real. The Bellini family crest was etched into the back.

My mother was gone. The men loyal to Vanessa’s father had taken her.

“They kidnapped her,” I choked out, tears blurring my vision. “Without her medication, her heart will fail. She won’t survive the night.”

Luca stepped closer.

He didn’t look angry. He looked entirely focused, a predator calculating his next move.

“Let me see the watch,” he said softly.

I handed it to him.

He popped the latch. The face of the watch was cracked, frozen at 11:42.

“This watch was in my father’s private safe,” Luca murmured, his jaw tightening. “Only two people had the combination. Me. And Marco.”

My breath caught in my throat.

“Marco?” I whispered. “Your underboss? The man who just locked Vanessa in the wine cellar?”

Luca’s dark eyes hardened.

“If Marco took this watch, he didn’t lock her in. He let her out.”

He immediately pulled his phone from his tailored jacket and dialed a number.

He put it on speaker.

The phone rang twice before a gruff voice answered.

“Boss.”

“Marco,” Luca said, his voice perfectly smooth, hiding the trap he was laying. “Is Vanessa secured?”

“Yes, Boss. Locked in the cellar. Two guards at the door.”

“Good. Have them stay there. I’ll deal with her when I get back.”

Luca hung up.

He looked at me. “He’s lying. The guards he assigned to that door are his own loyalists.”

“Why would Marco help her?” I asked, my mind spinning. “He’s been with your family for twenty years.”

“Because my father made me boss instead of him,” Luca said coldly. “Marco has always believed he deserved the seat. If he helps Vanessa destroy me, the Bellini faction will back his claim to the throne.”

He looked around the small, cramped apartment, noting the faded wallpaper and the stack of unpaid medical bills on the kitchen counter.

“Your mother lived like this,” Luca noted gently. “If she really gave my father the codes twenty-eight years ago, he would have paid her millions. Why are you struggling to pay rent?”

“I don’t know,” I cried. “She never had money. She worked at a diner until her heart gave out.”

Luca frowned. He walked over to the closet near the front door.

He knelt and ran his hands along the cheap wooden floorboards.

“Sir, what are you doing?”

“When people hide secrets, they keep them close,” Luca said.

He pressed firmly on a loose board in the back corner. It groaned, then popped up.

Luca reached inside and pulled out a dusty, leather-bound diary.

“Did you know she had this?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Never.”

Luca opened the diary. The pages were filled with my mother’s neat, sloping handwriting.

He flipped to a page near the end, dated October 14th—twenty-eight years ago. The day Carlo Bellini died.

Luca read it silently, his face turning pale.

“What does it say?” I asked, terrified.

Luca looked up at me. The fearsome mafia boss looked genuinely shaken.

“Your mother didn’t betray Carlo Bellini,” Luca whispered. “She was trying to save him.”

He turned the diary toward me.

I overheard Mr. Moretti’s men planning the hit. I tried to warn Carlo. I tried to get him out. But I was too late. When I got to the docks, Carlo was already bleeding out. He made me promise to hide his second child. The one nobody knew about. The one born out of wedlock.

I stared at the words.

“A second child?” I whispered. “Vanessa has a sibling?”

Luca flipped the page.

A small, folded piece of paper fell out of the diary.

It was a birth certificate.

Luca picked it up, reading the name.

He slowly raised his eyes, looking at me with a profound, earth-shattering realization.

“Rebecca,” Luca said, his voice trembling slightly.

He handed me the paper.

I looked down.

FATHER: CARLO BELLINI.

MOTHER: MARY COLLINS.

CHILD: REBECCA COLLINS.

I wasn’t a maid.

I was Vanessa’s half-sister.

And the daughter of the man Luca’s father had murdered.

Before the shock could fully hit my brain, Luca’s phone buzzed in his hand.

A text message.

From Marco.

It was a picture of my mother, tied to a chair in a dark warehouse, a gun pressed to her temple.

Beneath it was a single line of text:

Bring the girl to Pier 9, or the old woman dies.

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