Chapter 2 - THE SILVER POCKET WATCH
The heavy oak doors of the restaurant swung open with a slow, agonizing creak.
Luca Moretti didn’t blink. He kept his eyes locked on the darkness of the entryway, the blood from the dead bodyguard still warm on the back of his hand.
The waitress stood beside him, her hands trembling violently, but her grip on the 9mm pistol was terrifyingly steady.
Footsteps echoed against the marble floor. Slow. Methodical.
A figure emerged from the shadows.
It wasn’t Victor Salerno. It wasn’t Isabella.
It was Carlo.
Luca’s breath hitched in his chest. Carlo was his mentor. His father’s most trusted advisor. The man who had practically raised Luca after his biological father was gunned down twenty years ago.
But Carlo wasn’t looking at Luca with the warmth of a surrogate father. His face was a mask of cold, calculated stone.
In his left hand, Carlo held a vintage silver pocket watch.
Luca recognized it instantly. The intricate engraving of a roaring lion on the lid. The cracked glass face. It was his father’s watch. The watch that had been stolen off his father’s bleeding body in the alleyway all those years ago.
“Put the gun down, Elena,” Carlo said, his voice echoing in the dead silence of the restaurant.
He knew her name.
Luca turned slowly toward the waitress. “Who are you?”
“Don’t listen to him, Luca,” Elena whispered, tears spilling over her dark lashes. “He’s not here to save you. He’s the one who let them in.”
Carlo chuckled, a dry, rattling sound. He clicked the silver pocket watch open.
“You’re out of your depth, little girl,” Carlo said. “Isabella gave you a simple job. Deliver the phone. Walk away. You just couldn’t help yourself, could you?”
“Isabella?” Luca’s voice was dangerously low. He stepped between Elena and Carlo. “You’re working with my fiancée?”
Carlo looked at Luca with a mixture of pity and disgust. “Your fiancée is a very smart woman, Luca. Much smarter than you. She knew you’d never willingly hand over the master ledger to the Moretti accounts. So, we made an arrangement.”
Luca felt the floor tilt beneath him. The empire he had built, the family he had trusted—it was all a fragile illusion.
“The video of Isabella and Victor,” Luca said, his mind racing. “It was a setup.”
“A distraction,” Carlo corrected. “To keep your eyes on your oldest enemy, while your closest friends hollowed out your house from the inside.”
Carlo raised his right hand. Two men in tactical gear stepped out from the shadows behind him, raising suppressed submachine guns.
“I’m sorry, Luca,” Carlo said softly. “But it’s time for new management.”
“No!” Elena screamed.
She didn’t shoot at Carlo. She spun around and shot the massive crystal chandelier hanging directly above Carlo’s head.
The glass shattered like a bomb going off.
Thousands of razor-sharp shards rained down on Carlo and his men. In the chaos, Elena grabbed Luca’s collar, her grip surprisingly strong, and yanked him backward through the swinging kitchen doors.
Gunfire erupted, tearing through the metal doors a second later, but Luca and Elena were already moving.
They scrambled through the dark, grease-slicked kitchen. Luca’s mind was a hurricane, but his survival instincts kicked in. He shoved Elena behind a massive steel prep counter just as the kitchen doors burst open.
“The service elevator!” Luca ordered, pointing to the back wall.
They crawled over broken plates and spilled wine. Luca punched the elevator button, his knuckles white. The doors slid open, and they threw themselves inside.
As the doors closed, a bullet sparked against the metal frame, missing Luca’s head by an inch.
The elevator lurched downward into the parking garage.
Luca pinned Elena against the metal wall, his forearm pressing against her collarbone. He easily snatched the gun from her trembling hand.
“Talk,” Luca snarled, his dark eyes burning into hers. “Who the hell are you, and why do you know Carlo?”
Elena didn’t fight back. She just let out a broken, heavy sob.
She reached into the blood-stained pocket of her apron. Her hands were shaking so hard she could barely grasp the paper.
She pulled out a crumpled piece of paper and pressed it into Luca’s chest.
Luca slowly backed away. He looked down at the paper.
It was a child’s drawing, done in bright, messy crayons. It showed a woman, a little boy, and a dark, towering house.
May you like
Written at the top, in clumsy six-year-old handwriting, were the words: Please come save me, Mommy.
“Her name isn’t Isabella,” Elena choked out, sliding down the elevator wall until she hit the floor. “Her name is Sofia. She’s my sister. And if I didn’t give you that phone tonight… she was going to kill my son.”
