Chapter 1 – THE WATCH THAT STOPPED TIME
“Vanessa… when did you decide that marrying me gave you the right to take away my son’s voice?”
The silence in the dining room was absolute.
Twenty-eight guests sat frozen.
Nobody touched their champagne. Nobody looked away.
Vanessa’s tears stopped falling. The vulnerability in her eyes vanished, replaced by a cold, desperate panic. She looked around the table, realizing none of Chicago’s most powerful figures were going to step in to save her.
“Luca, you’re embarrassing me,” she whispered.
“You embarrassed yourself.” Luca didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t have to. “When you decided a ten-year-old boy was an inconvenience to your perfect wedding.”
“I was doing what was necessary!” Vanessa snapped, her voice suddenly sharp. “Your father agreed with me. The Family needs to look strong on Saturday. We can’t have the heir to the Moretti empire pressing buttons on a screen during the vows!”
My breath hitched.
She had just invoked the Don. Luca’s father. The man who ruled the Chicago syndicate with an iron fist.
Luca’s expression darkened. “My father doesn’t dictate what happens to my son. And neither do you.” He held out his hand. “The ring, Vanessa.”
She stared at him, her face draining of color. “What?”
“Take it off.”
“Luca, you can’t be serious. Over a piece of plastic?”
“Over my son.”
Vanessa stood up so quickly her chair tipped backward, crashing against the hardwood floor. In her haste, her silver evening clutch slid off the table, spilling its contents across the Persian rug.
Lipstick. A compact mirror.
And a heavy, gold pocket watch.
I knelt instinctively to gather her things, my hands shaking. But as my fingers brushed the cold gold of the watch, Oliver gasped.
It wasn’t a small sound. It was a sharp, terrified intake of air.
He dropped his tablet, his hands flying to his ears as he rocked backward in his chair.
“Buddy?” Luca was beside him in an instant. “Hey, look at me. You’re safe.”
But Oliver wasn’t looking at Luca. He was staring at the gold watch in my hand.
I looked down at the engraving on the back.
To Elena. Forever.
Elena. Luca’s late wife. Oliver’s mother. The woman who had died in a tragic accident in this very house three years ago.
“Where did you get this?” Luca’s voice was dangerously low. He wasn’t looking at me. He was staring at Vanessa.
Vanessa swallowed hard, taking a step back. “I… I found it. In the study. I was going to have it polished for the wedding.”
Oliver scrambled toward his tablet. His fingers hit the screen so hard I thought the glass might crack.
The electronic voice cut through the heavy air.
“She was holding it.”
Luca stepped over the spilled purse, closing the distance between him and Vanessa. “Holding it when, buddy?”
Oliver pressed three more buttons.
“On the stairs.”
The dining room erupted into frantic whispers. Elena Moretti had died falling down the grand staircase. The official report said she had tripped.
Vanessa’s face went completely white. “He’s lying! The boy doesn’t know what he’s saying! He’s disabled, Luca, his memory isn’t right!”
“Don’t you ever call him that,” Luca growled, his eyes completely black. “Hannah, take Oliver upstairs. Lock his bedroom door. Do not open it for anyone but me.”
“Yes, sir,” I whispered, scooping up Oliver’s tablet.
I reached for his hand. He gripped my fingers so tightly it hurt.
As we hurried out of the dining room, I heard the sound of a heavy door slamming shut, locking the twenty-eight guests—and Vanessa—inside with the boss of the Chicago syndicate.
We reached the top of the stairs, my heart pounding against my ribs.
I led Oliver into his room, shutting the heavy oak door and turning the deadbolt.
“You’re safe now, sweetheart,” I breathed, sinking to the floor beside his bed.
Oliver didn’t sit down. He walked straight to his closet, reaching under his collection of astronomy books. He pulled out a small, folded piece of child’s construction paper.
He walked over and handed it to me.
“What is this, Oliver?”
He tapped his tablet.
“Proof.”
I unfolded the paper. It was a drawing. A woman with dark hair falling down the stairs. But at the top of the stairs, standing in the shadows, was a woman with bright red hair. Vanessa.
And in her hand, she was holding the gold pocket watch.
Before I could even process what I was looking at, the doorknob slowly began to turn.
Someone was trying to get in.
And then, a voice whispered through the crack beneath the door.
“Open the door, Hannah. Or your mother loses her apartment tonight.”
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