Chapter 3 - THE WATCH THAT STOPPED AT 11:47
“Taken by whom?”
Catherine's voice was so quiet that Victor almost pretended he hadn't heard her.
She stepped closer.
“My brother, Victor. Who took him?”
Victor looked around the ballroom.
Three hundred people were watching him, but the only person he seemed concerned about was Arthur Kensington.
“Not here,” he said.
“Here.”
“Catherine, you don't understand what you're asking.”
“Then explain it.”
Victor swallowed.
“I wasn't there when it happened.”
It was the first answer he had given her all evening that sounded remotely honest.
Arthur approached.
“Victor, I suggest you stop speaking.”
Catherine turned toward him.
“Why?”
Arthur's face tightened.
“Because the circumstances surrounding your family's disappearance are complicated.”
She almost laughed.
Complicated.
For ten years, that word had followed her everywhere.
The police investigation had been complicated.
Her father's business had been complicated.
Her brother's disappearance had been complicated.
And every time someone used it, another door closed.
“Arthur,” she said, “you promised me no more secrets.”
“I promised to help you uncover the truth.”
“Then let him speak.”
Victor looked at the watch.
“Nobody was supposed to have that.”
“Why was it in your office?”
“It was given to me.”
“By whom?”
Victor hesitated.
“My father.”
That answer landed harder than Catherine expected.
Giovanni Costello had died seven years earlier.
Victor rarely spoke about him except to criticize his business decisions.
“He told me it was a reminder,” Victor continued. “A reminder of what happens when powerful men trust the wrong people.”
Vargas struck his cane against the marble.
“Careful, boy.”
Victor turned on him.
“You knew my father. Don't pretend otherwise.”
“I knew him,” Vargas said. “That doesn't mean I trusted him.”
Catherine studied the old man.
“Did you know my brother?”
Vargas lowered his eyes.
“Yes.”
His answer made her chest ache.
For ten years, she had avoided speaking Daniel's name aloud.
Not because she wanted to forget him.
Because every time she did, she remembered his voice calling from the hallway as smoke filled their childhood home.
Danny had been seventeen.
She had been twenty-one.
He had argued with their father that evening.
She remembered that clearly.
She also remembered Daniel pressing something into her hand before telling her to run.
A bracelet.
The silver bracelet she had worn since childhood.
She still possessed it.
Hidden in a small wooden box beneath her library desk.
Victor interrupted her thoughts.
“I can tell you what my father told me. But we do this somewhere private.”
“No,” Arthur said sharply.
Catherine looked at him.
There was something in his expression she hadn't seen before.
Fear.
Not fear of Victor.
Fear of what Victor might say.
That realization unsettled her more than the watch.
“Tommy,” she called.
The security chief approached immediately.
“Have the guests escorted to the east terrace and adjoining reception room. Anyone who wants to leave may leave. Nobody is to be questioned or threatened.”
Victor snapped his head around.
“Those are my employees!”
Tommy met his gaze.
“Tonight, my priority is preventing anyone from getting hurt.”
Victor stared at him.
“You're choosing her?”
Tommy looked toward Catherine.
“Your wife made sure my daughter had somewhere safe to sleep when you threatened our home.”
A few guests nearby heard him.
Victor's mouth tightened.
“She interfered in something she didn't understand.”
“She understood enough.”
Tommy stepped away.
Within minutes, the crowded ballroom had begun to empty.
Khloe stood uncertainly beside the table.
“Victor?”
“Go upstairs.”
“But—”
“Now.”
Catherine noticed Khloe flinch.
For the first time, she saw her husband's mistress without the practiced confidence she wore like jewelry.
Khloe touched the emerald necklace.
“I didn't know it was hers,” she whispered.
Catherine looked at her.
“You never asked.”
Khloe's eyes filled.
“I thought he was separated from you emotionally. He told me you had an arrangement.”
“We didn't.”
Khloe removed the necklace.
Her fingers trembled as she placed it on the table.
“I understand.”
Then she walked away.
Catherine watched her go.
For months, she had imagined how satisfying that moment might feel.
Instead, she felt only exhaustion.
Arthur closed his portfolio.
“We should move this discussion to the study.”
Catherine shook her head.
“The ballroom is fine.”
Victor glanced at the enormous windows.
“My father received the watch from a man named Franklin Mercer.”
Arthur's hand tightened around the portfolio.
Catherine noticed.
“Who was he?”
“A private security contractor. Worked shipping routes, handled sensitive deliveries.”
“Is he alive?”
“I don't know.”
Vargas spoke.
“Mercer was involved in the Volkov estate evacuation.”
Catherine turned toward him.
“Evacuation?”
Vargas closed his eyes briefly.
“The night of the attack, your father knew something was coming.”
“Then why didn't he leave?”
“We believed there was still time.”
“Who believed?”
Vargas said nothing.
Sokolov stepped forward.
“All three of us.”
Catherine looked from one man to another.
“You knew?”
Arthur answered.
“We knew there was a threat against your father. We were preparing to move the family.”
“And nobody told me?”
“Your father didn't want you frightened.”
She stared at him.
“My father died. My brother disappeared. I spent ten years thinking I was the only person left alive. And you thought protecting me meant keeping me ignorant?”
Arthur looked suddenly old.
“I thought you would hate me if you knew how badly we'd failed.”
“I already knew you'd failed.”
The words struck him.
He didn't defend himself.
Victor took advantage of the silence.
“My father said the watch was recovered from a safe room after the attack.”
Catherine looked down at its cracked glass.
“Why did he keep it?”
“He believed it was connected to something missing.”
“What?”
“A ledger.”
Vargas exchanged a glance with Sokolov.
Catherine saw it.
“What ledger?”
Sokolov answered reluctantly.
“Your father maintained private records of financial agreements between several families. Shipping fees, ownership shares, payments, guarantees.”
“Legal agreements?”
“Some.”
“And the others?”
Sokolov said nothing.
Catherine understood.
The records could destroy careers.
Possibly lives.
Victor rubbed his forehead.
“My father spent years looking for that ledger. He believed Daniel took it before the attack.”
Catherine's heart lurched.
“Daniel?”
“He thought your brother had been planning to expose the family.”
Arthur's face had turned gray.
“That isn't the whole story.”
Catherine faced him.
“Then tell me the rest.”
Arthur opened the portfolio again.
This time he removed a folded letter.
The paper was yellowed at the edges.
Across the front was a familiar handwriting.
Danny's handwriting.
Catherine reached for it.
Arthur hesitated.
“Why didn't you give me this before?” she asked.
“Because your father entrusted it to me under specific conditions.”
“What conditions?”
“That I should give it to you when you were safe enough to decide what to do with the truth.”
Catherine took the letter.
Her fingers shook so badly she could barely unfold it.
The first sentence nearly brought her to her knees.
Katie, if you're reading this, the plan didn't work.
She pressed a hand against her mouth.
Katie.
Nobody had called her that in ten years.
She forced herself to continue.
Dad isn't the man you think he is. I found out what happened to the families who disappeared after the harbor contracts changed. I tried to make him stop.
A cold sensation spread through her chest.
Arthur knows some of it. Vargas knows more. But neither of them understands what I found.
Catherine looked up.
Vargas avoided her eyes.
The final paragraph was written in hurried, uneven strokes.
If anything happens to me, don't trust the story they tell you about that night. And please, Katie, don't believe I left you willingly.
Catherine turned the page.
There was one final line.
The watch wasn't broken in the fire. Dad stopped it himself.
Her breath caught.
She looked at the watch in her palm.
11:47.
Then she remembered something she hadn't thought about in years.
The night of the attack, Daniel had been wearing his own watch.
A cheap digital one she'd bought him for his seventeenth birthday.
Her father's silver watch had been sitting on his bedroom dresser.
She looked at Victor.
“Your father lied about where he found this.”
Victor stared at her.
“Why?”
Catherine examined the watch carefully.
Along the back, beneath the Volkov family crest, she noticed three shallow scratches.
Not damage.
Letters.
D. V.
Daniel Volkov.
She pressed the small release on the side of the case.
The back opened.
Inside was a tiny folded strip of paper.
On it, in Daniel's handwriting, were seven words.
Ask Arthur why he locked the west gate.
May you like
Catherine slowly lifted her eyes.
Arthur Kensington had already begun moving toward the door.
