Chapter 2 – THE BROKEN SILVER WATCH

“Ask your precious maid where she got your dead brother’s watch.”

The words echoed in the marble foyer.

Nicholas bent down and picked up the silver watch.

He turned it over.

Engraved on the back were the initials D.C.

Domenic Caruso.

Nicholas’s older brother had been killed in a hit-and-run five years ago.

The watch had vanished from the scene.

He looked at Maria.

She was pale, her eyes wide with terror.

“I… I can explain,” she stammered.

Vivienne laughed bitterly.

“She’s a spy, Nicholas. I found that in her quarters today. That’s why I was kicking her out.”

Nicholas looked at Arthur.

“See Miss Hart to the door.”

“Nicholas!” Vivienne shrieked as the butler took her arm.

“You’re making a mistake!”

Once the heavy front doors closed, Nicholas turned back to Maria.

He didn’t yell.

He just held out the watch.

“Maria. Where did you get this?”

Maria swallowed hard.

“My husband gave it to me.”

Nicholas’s eyes narrowed.

“Your husband?”

“Before he died,” Maria whispered. “He was a paramedic. Five years ago, he responded to an accident on the bridge.”

Nicholas froze.

Domenic’s accident.

“He tried to save the man,” Maria continued, tears spilling over. “But when the man was dying, he pressed that watch into my husband’s hand. He told him to hide it.”

“Why?”

“Because he said the police who were coming were the ones who ran him off the road.”

Nicholas felt the floor drop out from under him.

His brother’s death hadn’t been an accident.

And a corrupt police unit had covered it up.

“My husband was terrified,” Maria sobbed. “He hid the watch. A month later, he was killed in a ‘random’ mugging. I was left alone with Lucy. I kept the watch hidden.”

Nicholas looked down at Lucy, who was wiping her chocolate-stained fingers on her dress.

Then he noticed something else.

Tucked inside the back casing of the open watch, a tiny, folded piece of paper was wedged behind the gears.

He pulled it out with trembling fingers.

It was a faded baggage claim ticket for a train station locker.

“Maria,” Nicholas whispered. “There’s a ticket in here.”

Before she could answer, a loud, violent crash shattered the silence.

The front window of the mansion exploded inward in a shower of glass.

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