Chapter 2 - THE SILVER WATCH
The heavy oak doors of the dining room clicked shut. The sound echoed through the silent space like a gunshot.
Fifty guests sat completely paralyzed. Nobody touched their wine. Nobody whispered.
Vanessa’s father, Richard Bellini, stood at the end of the table, his face slick with sudden sweat. He was a man used to controlling boardrooms, but right now, looking at Luca Moretti, he looked terrified.
“Unlock the doors, Luca,” Richard said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “Let Michael leave quietly. For your own sake.”
Luca didn’t move toward the doors. Instead, he walked slowly around the long banquet table, his dark eyes fixed on his younger brother.
“Michael,” Luca said softly. “What is he talking about? Why would I want those men to take you?”
Michael looked down at his hands. His knuckles were white. He looked like the little boy who used to wash dishes in the back of their father’s kitchen, not a thirty-year-old man.
“Because of the watch,” Michael choked out.
Vanessa lunged forward, her red gown catching on her chair. “Shut up, Michael! Don’t you dare—”
“Sit down, Vanessa,” Luca said. He didn’t yell. He didn’t have to. The quiet menace in his tone made her freeze.
Luca turned back to his brother. “What watch?”
Michael reached into his suit jacket. His hand was shaking so badly he could barely retrieve the object. When he finally pulled it out and placed it on the white tablecloth, my breath caught in my throat.
It was a heavy, silver pocket watch. Tarnished, dented on one side.
Luca stared at it. All the color drained from his face.
“That’s our father’s,” Luca whispered. “He had that on him the night he died in the fire at the restaurant. The police said it melted. They said nothing survived.”
Michael swallowed hard. “It didn’t melt, Luca. Because he wasn’t wearing it when the fire started. He gave it to me.”
The room was so quiet I could hear the antique grandfather clock ticking in the hallway.
“You were ten years old when he died,” Luca said, his voice dangerously low. “Why would he give you his watch in the middle of the night?”
“Because he knew they were coming,” Michael cried, tears finally spilling over his lashes. “He woke me up. He gave me the watch and pushed me out the back window. He told me to run and never tell anyone what I saw. And I didn't. Not until Vanessa found out.”
Luca slowly turned his head toward his fiancée. Vanessa shrank back.
“Vanessa found out?” Luca asked. “How?”
Before Vanessa could speak, Mr. Vitale, the Italian businessman, cleared his throat. He looked deeply uncomfortable, but he turned to me.
He spoke rapidly in Italian.
I gripped my stained apron. My heart pounded against my ribs.
“Translate it, Emily,” Luca commanded, his eyes never leaving Vanessa.
“Mr. Vitale says...” I hesitated, looking at Richard Bellini. “He says the Bellini family has been trying to buy the restaurant land for ten years. But your father always refused. So Mr. Vitale assumed the fire was... convenient.”
Richard Bellini’s face went purple. “This maid is lying! She’s mistranslating on purpose!”
“I am not lying,” I said, my voice steadying.
I stepped closer to the table. “And Mr. Vitale just asked something else. He asked why Mr. Bellini is wearing a coat that belongs to the Moretti family.”
Everyone looked at Richard. He hastily tried to button his suit jacket, but as he fumbled, something slipped from his inner pocket and fluttered to the floor.
I bent down and picked it up.
It was a faded, black-and-white photograph.
I flipped it over. My stomach dropped.
“Mr. Moretti,” I whispered, handing the photo to Luca.
Luca took it. He stared at the image of his father standing in front of the restaurant, thirty years ago. But his father wasn’t alone in the photo.
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Standing right next to him, shaking his hand, was a younger Richard Bellini.
And scrawled across the back in Italian were the words: Debt paid in blood.
