Chapter 2 - The Tarnished Watch
“What did your father know about mine?”
Matteo’s question hung in the quiet, shadowed corridor just outside the grand ballroom. The faint sounds of the string quartet and clinking champagne glasses felt like they belonged to an entirely different world.
Isabella stared down at the document resting on the small mahogany side table. The ink was faded, the parchment slightly yellowed at the edges, but the signature at the bottom was undeniable. Arthur Bennett. Her father. A man she had watched go to work at a quiet accounting firm every day of her childhood, a man who had packed her lunches and helped her with math homework.
He was not a man who associated with billionaires, and certainly not with the Rossi mafia family.
“He didn’t know anything,” Isabella whispered, her voice trembling. She reached out, her fingertips hovering just above the signature but refusing to touch it, as if the paper itself might burn her. “He was an accountant. A normal, boring accountant. He died of a massive heart attack when I was nineteen. This has to be a forgery. A mistake.”
Matteo did not move. He stood with the quiet, terrifying stillness of a predator calculating its next strike. He looked down at the young waitress, seeing the genuine shock draining the color from her face.
“My father, Lorenzo Rossi, disappeared on October 14th, eight years ago,” Matteo said, his voice a low, gravelly hum that demanded absolute attention. “The police called it a boating accident. My family called it a tragedy. I called it murder.”
Isabella’s breath hitched in her throat. She looked up at him, her eyes wide.
“This document,” Matteo continued, tapping the heavy parchment, “was signed on October 14th. The exact same day. And according to my private investigators, Arthur Bennett didn’t die of a natural heart attack. The toxicology reports from his autopsy were sealed by a judge who has been on my rival’s payroll for a decade.”
The corridor seemed to tilt beneath Isabella’s feet. For eight years, she had carried the grief of losing her father to a random, cruel act of nature. Now, looking into the dark, relentless eyes of a mafia boss, the foundation of her entire life was violently shattering.
Her father was murdered.
“Why?” Isabella choked out, the tears she refused to shed burning the back of her throat. “Why would anyone kill him? He had nothing!”
“That is what we are going to find out,” Matteo said, stepping closer. “Because this document was supposed to transfer a significant portion of my father’s legitimate real estate holdings to a shell company. A shell company controlled by the very people hosting this wedding today.”
Before Isabella could process the magnitude of the betrayal, the heavy mahogany doors at the end of the corridor swung open.
Three men stepped into the hallway.
They were not wedding guests. They wore expensive, tailored suits, but they moved with the heavy, synchronized steps of men who were used to enforcing violence. At the center of the trio was a man Isabella recognized from the VIP tables—Carlo Rossi. Matteo’s uncle. The man who had practically raised Matteo after his father’s disappearance.
Matteo’s posture shifted instantly. He didn’t reach for a weapon, but the sudden tension in his broad shoulders told Isabella everything she needed to know.
“Matteo, my boy,” Carlo called out, his voice echoing warmly down the hall, though his eyes remained entirely cold. “The bride’s father is looking for you. The partnership announcement is happening in five minutes. We need you on the stage to sign the unity agreement.”
“I’ll be there in a moment, Uncle Carlo,” Matteo replied smoothly, his tone betraying absolutely nothing. “I was just dealing with a spilled drink.”
Carlo’s gaze slid past Matteo, landing heavily on Isabella. For a fraction of a second, something dark and recognizing flashed in the older man’s eyes.
“A waitress,” Carlo mused softly. “Make sure she cleans it up quickly. We wouldn’t want any messes ruining tonight’s victory.”
“Of course,” Matteo said.
Carlo and his men turned and walked back into the ballroom.
As soon as the doors clicked shut, Matteo turned back to Isabella. The calm mask was gone. “The trap is springing early,” he whispered urgently. “Carlo is in on it. My own uncle is handing my empire to our enemies. If I walk onto that stage and sign that agreement, I lose the company. If I refuse, those men won’t let me leave this estate alive.”
Isabella’s heart hammered furiously against her ribs. She was a waitress. She was supposed to serve champagne and take the bus back to her tiny apartment. But the man standing in front of her was the only connection she had to the truth about her father’s murder.
“My dad left me something,” Isabella blurted out, her hands shaking as she reached into the deep pocket of her black apron. “The night he died, he gave it to me. He said if he was ever gone, I should keep it hidden until someone asked about October 14th.”
Matteo’s eyes narrowed. “What is it?”
Isabella pulled her hand out. Resting in her palm was a heavy, tarnished silver pocket watch. It looked ordinary, battered by time.
But when Matteo looked down at it, all the blood drained from his face.
May you like
He reached out, tracing the faded, intricate engraving on the front cover. It was a crest. A wolf standing over a shattered crown.
“That is the Rossi family crest,” Matteo whispered, his voice thick with a sudden, overwhelming emotion. “Only blood-sworn confidants carry this. Your father wasn’t just an accountant, Isabella. He was my father’s Keeper of Secrets.”
