Chapter 5 - THE DEAD MAN’S WATCH
The pungent, suffocating smell of propane filled the concrete bunker in seconds.
"Cover your mouths!" Massimo roared, pulling his jacket up over his nose.
The boys scrambled, using their shirts to filter the toxic air. Massimo sprinted up the wooden stairs and threw his shoulder against the iron trapdoor. It didn't budge. He fired his gun directly into the heavy metal, the gunshot deafening in the enclosed space. The bullet ricocheted, sparking against the iron, but the padlock held tight.
"It won't open!" Rafael coughed, his eyes watering.
Massimo slid back down the stairs. The gas was pumping in through the ventilation grates near the ceiling. It was a death trap. Vincent Maroni hadn't just killed Arthur; he had left a bomb waiting for the people he knew would come looking.
"Look for a secondary exit!" Massimo ordered, his voice muffled by his coat. "Smugglers built these bunkers. They never build a room with only one door."
They tore through the room. Teo threw filing cabinets to the floor, coughing violently. Rafael smashed a computer server with a chair, searching the walls behind it.
Massimo moved toward Arthur’s body. He patted down the dead man’s pockets, searching for anything—a key, a tool, a clue.
His fingers brushed against a heavy, gold pocket watch in Arthur’s vest.
Massimo pulled it out. The glass face was cracked, stuck at exactly 10:42.
Massimo’s brain, desperate for oxygen, connected a dots.
"Ten-forty-two," Massimo gasped, stumbling toward a heavy metal bookcase bolted to the far wall. "The old smuggler codes. The 10th bookshelf, 42nd book."
He counted the shelves blindly as the room spun. Eight, nine, ten.
He ran his hand along the bottom shelf, counting the spines of the dusty encyclopedias. Forty, forty-one, forty-two.
He grabbed the heavy leather-bound book and pulled.
It didn't slide out. It clicked.
The entire bookcase swung outward on silent, hidden hinges, revealing a dark, narrow dirt tunnel.
"Here!" Massimo yelled, his lungs burning. "Go! Now!"
Teo dove into the tunnel first, followed by Rafael. Massimo threw himself in last, grabbing the edge of the bookcase and pulling it shut behind him, sealing off the gas-filled room.
They crawled through the damp earth in absolute darkness, coughing and gasping for the clean, cold air filtering through the dirt. The tunnel was tight, built for quick escapes, and smelled of ancient root rot and wet stone.
After fifty agonizing yards, the tunnel sloped upward. Teo pushed against a wooden board above his head. It gave way, spilling them out into a ditch filled with freezing mud, a quarter-mile from the ruined motel.
They lay in the mud, staring up at the rain-streaked sky, chests heaving as they dragged clean air into their burning lungs.
"We made it," Teo wheezed, rolling onto his back.
Suddenly, a massive explosion shook the ground beneath them.
The Starlight Motel erupted in a brilliant fireball, the propane in the bunker igniting and blowing the concrete foundation into the sky. Flames licked the tops of the pine trees, turning the night bright orange.
Massimo sat up, wiping the mud from his face. If he had taken ten seconds longer to find that watch, they would be ash.
"He knew we were coming," Rafael said, his voice trembling as he watched the flames. "Vincent knew about Arthur. He knew we’d find the motel."
"Vincent is always two steps ahead," Massimo said bitterly. He looked down at his hand. He was still clutching the gold pocket watch he had taken from Arthur’s body.
He wiped the dirt from the glass face.
It wasn't just stuck at 10:42. The second hand was moving, ticking rhythmically.
"Wait," Massimo muttered, holding the watch up to the orange light of the fire.
He pressed the small button on the side of the crown. The back of the watch popped open.
Inside the casing wasn't a set of gears. It was a tiny, intricately folded piece of microfilm.
Arthur hadn't just been waiting to die. He had known Vincent was coming for him, and he had hidden his life’s work in the one place he knew Massimo would look.
"What is it?" Teo asked, crawling over.
"Leverage," Massimo said, carefully removing the microfilm. "Arthur was an accountant. He documented everything. This isn't just about the money your mother stole. This film probably has every bribe, every murder, and every dirty politician Vincent Maroni ever bought."
Rafael’s eyes hardened. "So we trade it. The film for our mother."
"No," a new voice rang out from the darkness of the trees.
Massimo instantly raised his gun, pointing it at the tree line.
A woman stepped out of the shadows. She was holding a high-powered hunting rifle, leveled directly at Massimo’s chest.
She looked to be in her mid-forties, her dark hair pulled back into a tight braid. She wore a heavy canvas jacket and combat boots, and her eyes were a storm of grief and fury.
But it was her face that made the blood freeze in Massimo’s veins.
She looked exactly like Renata.
"Aunt Elena?" Teo whispered in shock.
Massimo stared. He knew Renata had a sister, but she had severed ties with her family years ago to protect them.
"Put the gun down, Elena," Massimo said slowly, not lowering his own weapon.
"You bring death wherever you go, Massimo," Elena spat, her hands gripping the rifle tight. "Nineteen years we ran from you. Nineteen years my sister looked over her shoulder because she loved a monster."
"She’s my mother!" Rafael shouted, stepping in front of Massimo. "We’re trying to save her!"
Elena looked at her nephews. The hardness in her eyes fractured, tears spilling over her cheeks.
"I know you are, Rafael," she wept. "But you can't."
"Why not?" Teo pleaded.
"Because Vincent called me an hour ago," Elena sobbed, her hands shaking violently. "He has my daughter. He has your cousin."
Massimo’s stomach plummeted.
"Vincent told me if I didn't intercept you, if I didn't bring him that pocket watch..." Elena choked back a sob, raising the rifle higher. "He’ll kill my little girl. I’m sorry, Massimo. But I have to choose my child."
May you like
She cocked the rifle.
"Now give me the watch, or I shoot you right here in the mud."
