Chapter 7 - THE HEIRLOOM WATCH
The burned boarding pass fluttered from my fingers, landing silently on the hangar floor.
Elena.
The woman who had carried Eli. The woman I had left at the mansion with my mother, believing she was protecting her.
She was the traitor. She was Isabella’s inside man all along.
“She played us,” I whispered, the horrifying realization washing over me like ice water. “She set up Victor in the garage to gain my trust. She wanted me to leave my mother alone with her.”
I grabbed my phone and dialed my mother’s secure line.
It rang once. Twice. Then went to voicemail.
“Marcus,” I grabbed him by the collar, hauling him to his feet. “Where did Elena take her?”
“I don't know!” Marcus gasped in pain. “But Isabella mentioned an old warehouse on Pier 9. She said it was the staging ground if the airport plan fell apart.”
“Watch the boy,” I snarled, shoving Marcus back against the crates. “If he gets a scratch on him, I will kill you myself.”
I sprinted to a maintenance truck parked outside the hangar. The keys were in the ignition. I threw it in gear and tore out of the airfield, tearing through the empty city streets toward the docks.
Pier 9 was abandoned, a graveyard of rusted shipping containers and rotting wood.
I parked the truck a block away and approached on foot. A single light burned inside an old warehouse at the end of the pier.
I kicked the side door open, my gun raised.
Inside, the warehouse was damp and smelled of seawater. My mother was tied to a wooden chair in the center of the room. She looked exhausted, her head hanging down.
Standing behind her, holding a gun to the back of my mother’s head, was Elena.
“Roman,” Elena said, her voice devoid of the warmth she had faked for seven years. “You’re faster than I thought.”
“Let her go, Elena,” I said, walking slowly into the light. “You have your ticket to Bogota. Isabella is bleeding out in a car on the highway. Your plan failed.”
“My plan worked perfectly,” Elena smiled coldly. “Isabella was a foolish, arrogant girl. I didn't work for her. I used her to get close to the family.”
I stopped. “What are you talking about?”
Elena reached into her coat and pulled out a heavy, gold pocket watch.
I recognized it instantly. It was the heirloom watch my father always carried. The one that was stolen the night he was murdered.
“Your father didn't just steal the empire from Isabella’s family,” Elena said, stepping out from behind the chair, the gun still aimed at my mother. “He stole it from mine, too. My father was his partner. Until your father put a bullet in his back to take total control.”
“You’ve been planning this for twenty years?” I asked, horrified by the depth of her deception.
“I spent ten years getting close to your mother,” Elena spat. “I offered to carry her child. I embedded myself so deeply in this family that you trusted me with your lives.”
“You gave birth to Eli,” I said, trying to appeal to whatever humanity she had left. “He’s your son.”
“He is a Moretti,” Elena sneered with pure disgust. “He is a means to an end. Once your mother is dead, and you take the fall for the drugs on the plane, I take the boy to Colombia. I raise the heir to the empire, and I dismantle it from the inside out.”
My mother slowly lifted her head. She looked at Elena, not with fear, but with a profound, crushing pity.
“You poor, broken girl,” my mother whispered. “You spent your entire life chasing ghosts. Roman’s father didn't kill your father, Elena. He died protecting him.”
Elena flinched, her hand shaking. “Liar!”
“Check the watch,” my mother said weakly. “Open the back casing. My husband put the police report inside it before he died.”
Elena hesitated. Her eyes darted between me and my mother. Slowly, keeping the gun leveled, she used her thumb to pry open the back of the gold heirloom watch.
A tiny, folded piece of microfiche fell out.
Elena stared at it. For the first time, her absolute certainty wavered.
It was the opening I needed.
I lunged.
I didn't fire my gun. I tackled Elena to the ground. She screamed, her weapon discharging into the wooden floorboards.
We fought brutally in the damp dirt of the warehouse. She slashed at my face with her nails, kicking and thrashing with a decade of pent-up rage. But I was fighting for my mother. I was fighting for Eli.
I managed to pin her wrists to the ground, knocking the gun from her hand.
“It’s over!” I yelled in her face.
Suddenly, a loud crash echoed from the warehouse entrance.
I looked up.
Isabella, covered in blood, her velvet coat ruined, stood in the doorway. She had somehow escaped the town car and followed me. In her uninjured left hand, she held a shotgun.
“Nobody gets the empire,” Isabella screamed, her eyes wild with madness.
She aimed the shotgun directly at my mother.
“NO!” I roared.
I threw myself off Elena, launching my body across the space between Isabella and my mother’s chair.
The shotgun blasted.
A deafening roar filled the warehouse. Pain, hot and white, exploded in my side. I crashed to the floor, gasping for air as blood instantly soaked my shirt.
But I had blocked the shot. My mother was safe.
Isabella pumped the shotgun to fire again, but a single gunshot rang out from the shadows.
Isabella’s eyes went wide. She dropped the shotgun, slowly collapsing to her knees before falling face-first onto the wooden floor. Dead.
I turned my head, my vision blurring.
Standing in the doorway, holding a smoking pistol, was Marcus. He had followed me from the hangar. He had finally made the right choice.
May you like
“Roman!” my mother screamed, struggling against her ropes.
I lay on the floor, pressing my hand against my bleeding side. The world was spinning, fading to black. The last thing I heard was the wailing of police sirens rushing toward the pier.
