Chapter 3 – THE TICKING GHOST

The gold pocket watch felt heavy in my palm, its broken chain dangling like a dead spider’s leg. L.B. Liam Brooks. My husband.

“He was a mechanic,” I whispered, staring at the scratches on the casing. “He wore this every day. He had it in his pocket the night he died in a hit-and-run.”

Silas didn’t move. His presence dominated the room, a silent pressure demanding the truth. “The police report for your husband’s death,” Silas said smoothly, “stated his personal effects were never recovered.”

I looked up, stunned. “How do you know that?”

“Because when a woman starts working in my house, around my daughter, I don’t just run a background check. I read every file connected to her name.” Silas stepped closer, the scent of his cedar cologne wrapping around me. “Your husband died on October 14th, four years ago. The exact same night my wife’s car was run off the bridge.”

The floor felt like it was tilting. October 14th. The worst night of my life. Liam had gone out to buy milk for a feverish, three-year-old Leo and never came back. The police said a black SUV had struck him on the shoulder of the highway and fled.

“You think…” I couldn’t finish the sentence.

“I think,” Silas said, his voice dangerously low, “that Maren didn’t just find this watch in a vintage shop, just like she didn’t find Elena’s brooch in one. I think Maren was in the car that killed your husband.”

Tears blurred my vision. The woman who had treated me like dirt, who had made Sophie cry, might be the reason my son was growing up without a father. Anger, hot and sharp, flared in my chest.

“Why would she keep it?” I asked, my voice shaking with rage. “A trophy?”

“Leverage,” Silas corrected. He walked behind his desk, pulling out a sealed manila envelope. “In my world, you don’t keep evidence of a crime unless you intend to use it against an accomplice. Or unless someone is holding it against you.”

He opened the envelope and tipped it over. A heavy, silver rosary spilled onto the leather desk blotter.

“I found this in Maren’s bedside drawer yesterday,” Silas said. “I didn’t think much of it until tonight.”

I stared at the beads. “I don’t understand.”

“This rosary belongs to the Moretti family. My biggest rivals,” Silas explained, his jaw tight. “They’ve been trying to take over my territory for five years. Maren wasn’t just a gold digger, Hannah. She was a plant. The Morettis sent her to marry me.”

“And Elena?” I asked, my heart breaking for the dead woman. “Did they kill her?”

Silas closed his eyes, a flicker of raw agony crossing his stoic face. “I thought her death was an accident. The roads were slick. But the recording Sophie found… Maren was blackmailing Elena. She drove her off that bridge. And your husband was collateral damage on her way back.”

I grabbed the edge of the desk to steady myself. “But why did Elena have a picture of Leo?”

Silas looked at me deeply. “That is the one piece of the puzzle I don’t have. But we are going to find out.”

He reached out and gently placed his hand over mine, right over the broken pocket watch. His touch was warm, surprisingly tender for a man of his reputation.

“Maren will run to the Morettis tonight,” Silas said quietly. “It won’t be safe for you or your son to go home. The Morettis know who you are. Maren proved that tonight when she tried to frame you.”

Panic seized me. “Leo is at my apartment with the babysitter. I have to get him.”

“My men are already there,” Silas said. “They are bringing him here. You and Leo will stay in the guest wing. Under my protection.”

I wanted to protest, to maintain my independence, but I knew the reality of his world. I nodded, tears finally spilling over.

The heavy oak door suddenly burst open.

One of Silas’s guards, a large man named Marco, stood in the doorway, bleeding from a cut above his eye.

“Boss,” Marco gasped, leaning against the frame. “We got to the apartment. But we were too late.”

Silas’s hand tightened over mine. “What do you mean?”

Marco looked at me with pity. “The babysitter was knocked out. The boy is gone. The Morettis took him.”

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