Chapter 2 - THE PLATINUM WATCH
Harold opened his mouth, but the words seemed to die in his throat.
The seventy-year-old businessman gripped the edge of the linen tablecloth. The color drained from his face, leaving him looking frail and terrified beneath the glow of the crystal chandeliers. Thirty-six elite guests, including some of the most feared investors in the city, leaned in closer. The silence in the dining room was absolute, broken only by the soft, ragged breathing of Victoria Moretti.
“I did what was necessary,” Harold finally rasped, his voice trembling. He looked toward Adrian. “Your father’s empire was crumbling, Adrian. He was making weak decisions. He was going to give half the family’s assets to Eleanor’s husband, a man who had no blood tie to this family!”
Eleanor Hayes’s hands stopped trembling on her cane. Her posture straightened, and suddenly, the frail seventy-year-old woman looked like a queen holding court.
“My husband built the southern shipping routes with his bare hands,” Eleanor said, her voice echoing off the marble walls. “He bled for your father, Adrian. And when your father realized Harold was skimming millions from the offshore accounts, he came to my husband for help.”
Vanessa stepped forward, her red silk gown rustling aggressively. “This is absurd! Adrian, are you going to let a disgruntled old widow slander your father’s closest friend at our engagement dinner?”
“I said shut your mouth, Vanessa,” Adrian replied.
His voice didn't rise. It didn't need to. The quiet, lethal authority in his tone made Vanessa flinch as if she had been slapped.
Adrian slowly turned his dark eyes back to Eleanor. “What happened the night my father died, Mrs. Hayes? The official report stated he suffered a massive heart attack in his study.”
“The official report was paid for,” Eleanor stated flatly.
Victoria let out a muffled sob, pressing a linen napkin to her mouth. “Eleanor, please! If you say it out loud, they’ll kill us all!”
“I am seventy years old, Victoria,” Eleanor said softly. “I have nothing left to fear.”
Eleanor reached into her small, beaded handbag. Her fingers emerged holding something wrapped in a piece of aged black velvet. She placed it carefully on the white tablecloth, right next to the crystal champagne flutes.
She unfolded the velvet.
Resting in the center was a heavy, antique platinum pocket watch. The Moretti family crest was engraved on the polished lid.
Adrian stared at it. His breath caught audibly. “That’s my father’s watch. He was buried with it.”
“He was buried with a replica,” Eleanor corrected gently. “My husband found your father on the floor of his study that night. He was already gone. But before my husband fled for his own life, he took the real watch from your father’s vest. Because he knew you would need to see it one day.”
Vanessa lunged forward, her manicured hand reaching for the platinum heirloom. “Give me that! It’s stolen property!”
Before her fingers could brush the metal, my own hand shot out.
I didn't think. I just reacted. I grabbed Vanessa’s wrist, my grip tightening hard enough to make her gasp.
“Don't touch it,” I said, my voice shaking but firm.
Vanessa glared at me with absolute venom. “Take your filthy hands off me, you little maid!”
“Let her go, Emily,” Adrian instructed quietly.
I released Vanessa’s wrist and stepped back, lowering my head, but my heart was pounding a frantic rhythm against my ribs. I had just assaulted the future lady of the house in front of thirty-six guests.
Adrian didn't look at Vanessa. He reached out and picked up the platinum watch. It was incredibly heavy. He turned it over in his large, scarred palm.
“Why did your husband take this, Eleanor?” Adrian asked.
“Open the back casing,” Eleanor instructed. “The inner panel. Press the release valve at the top.”
Adrian’s thick fingers found the tiny release valve. He pressed it.
The back of the platinum watch popped open with a sharp click.
A collective gasp rippled through the guests.
The internal gears of the beautiful timepiece were completely shattered. They were twisted, broken, and fused together around a horrifying centerpiece.
Lodged deep inside the delicate machinery of the watch was a flattened, deformed piece of lead.
A bullet.
“My God,” Robert, the banquet manager, whispered from the doorway.
Adrian’s face turned into a mask of pure, terrifying stone. His father hadn't died of a heart attack. He had been shot squarely in the chest, the bullet tearing through his suit and embedding itself inside the platinum watch in his breast pocket.
“He was murdered,” Adrian whispered, his voice vibrating with a dark, terrifying promise of violence.
Harold took a desperate step backward, bumping into the floral arrangement. “Adrian, listen to me! I didn't pull the trigger! I swear on my life! It was a hit ordered by the rival families! I only covered it up to keep the empire from fracturing!”
“You covered it up so you could steal the shipping routes!” Eleanor shouted, tears finally spilling down her wrinkled cheeks. “And then you framed my husband for the missing money to tie up your loose ends!”
Adrian didn't look at Harold. He was staring intensely at the broken gears of the watch.
“There’s something else in here,” Adrian murmured.
He reached into his jacket and pulled out a silver tie clip. Carefully, using the sharp edge of the clip, he pried beneath the flattened bullet.
Tucked underneath the lead, pressed flat against the platinum casing, was a tiny, tightly rolled piece of paper. It looked like a receipt.
Adrian extracted it. His massive hands trembled slightly as he unrolled the paper.
He stared at the words written on it for a long, agonizing moment. The silence in the room stretched until I thought the crystal glasses might shatter from the tension.
Slowly, Adrian raised his eyes.
He didn't look at Harold. He didn't look at Victoria, or Eleanor, or his fiancée.
He looked directly at me.
“Emily,” Adrian said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous register.
“Yes, sir?” I whispered, my stomach plummeting to the floor.
Adrian turned the tiny slip of paper around so I could see it.
It was a faded deposit receipt for a private offshore bank. But it wasn't the numbers that made the blood freeze in my veins. It was the signature at the bottom.
May you like
Thomas Carter.
“Why,” Adrian asked, his eyes locking onto mine with terrifying intensity, “is your father’s signature hidden inside the watch my father was murdered wearing?”
