Chapter 3 – The Broken Gold Pocket Watch
“Marco,” Lorenzo said quietly, not looking away from his former fiancée. “Lock the doors. No one from the Vescari family leaves this room.”
The heavy deadbolts of the dining room doors slammed shut with a deafening finality. The click echoed off the marble floors. Four of Lorenzo’s men immediately stepped away from the walls, their hands resting casually inside their tailored suit jackets. The Vescari delegates—Isabella’s uncle and two cousins—froze, realizing instantly that reaching for their own weapons would be a fatal miscalculation.
Isabella’s bravado completely shattered. “Lorenzo, this is madness! You are going to start a war over a bloody scrap of paper and a lying servant?”
Lorenzo ignored her. He carefully folded the hospital paper and slipped it into his breast pocket, placing it right over his heart. He walked slowly toward Isabella, the silver rosary wrapped tightly around his fist. The metal pressed into his skin, grounding him in the hurricane of rage building in his chest.
“For two years,” Lorenzo began, his voice barely above a whisper, yet carrying to every corner of the silent room. “For two years I sat at my wife’s grave, apologizing because I couldn’t find the man who ran her off the road. And all this time, the people who cut her brakes were drinking my wine and smiling at my daughter.”
“It’s a forgery!” Isabella shrieked, pointing a manicured finger at Emily. “She’s an obsessed fan, Lorenzo! She probably stalked Elena, learned about the rosary, and faked that note to frame us!”
Emily stood tall, though her knees knocked together beneath her black skirt. “I have something else,” she said quietly.
Every eye snapped to the young housemaid. Emily reached under the collar of her uniform and pulled a thin, tarnished chain from her neck. Hanging from it was a heavy gold pocket watch, the glass face shattered, the hands frozen precisely at 11:42.
Isabella’s uncle, Carlo Vescari, suddenly choked on his breath, his face draining of blood.
Lorenzo stepped over to Emily and stared at the watch. The gold casing was deeply scratched, bearing the distinct, deep-engraved crest of the Vescari family on the back. It was an antique, a piece passed down only to the inner circle of their syndicate.
“When the paramedics pulled Mrs. Moretti from the wreckage,” Emily explained, never taking her eyes off Isabella’s uncle, “her fingers were clamped shut. The doctors thought it was rigor mortis. But she was holding this. She tore it off whoever was in that car with her before they pushed her vehicle down the ravine.”
Lorenzo took the watch from Emily’s shaking hand. He turned it over. Beneath the Vescari crest were the initials C.V.
Carlo Vescari.
“You told me you were in Chicago the night Elena died,” Lorenzo said, his gaze shifting to the older man.
Carlo raised his hands in surrender, sweating profusely. “Lorenzo, listen to me. It was business. She was looking into the shipping manifests. She was going to expose the port deal to the Feds. We had to protect the families!”
Lorenzo’s jaw clenched so tight a muscle ticked in his cheek. Elena hadn’t just died in an accident. She had died trying to protect their legitimate businesses from the Vescari’s drug smuggling. And she had fought back hard enough to rip a man’s watch from his vest.
“Business,” Lorenzo repeated softly. He turned to Isabella, who was now weeping, her red satin dress suddenly looking entirely out of place. “Was it business to target my daughter tonight? To try and break her spirit? To fire the only woman who actually protected her?”
“I didn’t know about the murder, Lorenzo, I swear!” Isabella pleaded, falling to her knees. “I just hated how Clara looked at her instead of me!”
Lorenzo looked at Emily. The red mark on her cheek had swollen, a stark contrast to her pale skin. She had endured abuse, swallowed her pride, and scrubbed her own skin raw tonight just to protect Clara’s innocence, all while hiding the heaviest secret in the world.
“Marco,” Lorenzo said, tossing the broken pocket watch onto the table next to the discarded velvet ring box. “Take the Vescaris to the warehouse. We have family business to discuss.”
As the guards moved in, dragging the protesting Vescari men and a sobbing Isabella away, Lorenzo turned back to Emily. But before he could speak, the dining room door handles rattled from the outside.
“Daddy?” Clara’s small voice called through the heavy wood. “Maria says the milk is ready. Can we come in?”
Lorenzo took a deep breath, smoothing his expression. “Open it,” he told a guard.
Clara ran in, carrying a small tray with two mugs of warm milk. She stopped, looking around the empty, messy dining table. The guests were gone. Isabella was gone. Only her father and Emily remained.
“Where did the bad lady go?” Clara asked, confused.
Lorenzo knelt down, taking the tray from her and setting it on the floor. “She went away, sweetheart. She’s never coming back.”
Clara looked at Emily, then reached into her pocket. She pulled out a small, folded piece of paper, offering it to her father. “Daddy, Isabella dropped this when she was yelling earlier. I picked it up.”
Lorenzo unfolded the paper. It was a one-way train ticket to Montreal, dated for tomorrow. But it wasn’t in Isabella’s name. The name printed on the ticket was Clara Moretti.
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