Chapter 2 - THE THING OSWALDO LEFT BEHIND
Valerio fired before the man holding Danica could turn.
The suppressed shot struck the pistol from the attacker’s hand and sent it skidding beneath a brass console table.
Danica dropped instantly.
Not from fear.
From instinct.
Valerio crossed the corridor in three long strides.
The attacker recovered faster than most men would have. He drove a shoulder into Valerio’s chest, forcing him backward into the wall, then reached beneath his jacket.
Danica grabbed the nearest thing she could find.
A heavy silver vase.
She swung it into the man’s forearm.
He cursed.
Valerio seized the opening.
The fight lasted perhaps six seconds.
To Danica, it felt much longer.
Valerio slammed the man against the wall, struck him once in the ribs, and forced him facedown against the carpet.
Ignatio appeared around the corner with his weapon raised.
“Move away.”
“No,” Valerio said.
Ignatio’s expression hardened.
“He tried to kill her.”
“That is why I want him breathing.”
Danica pushed herself upright.
One side of her emerald gown had torn near the hip. Her hair had come loose, dark strands falling around her face.
Valerio looked at her carefully.
“Are you hurt?”
“My head hurts.”
“Anywhere else?”
She touched her scalp.
“I’ll give you a list later.”
Despite everything, something almost human moved through Valerio’s eyes.
Relief.
Then it vanished.
The attacker laughed against the carpet.
“You’re already dead, Castellion.”
Valerio crouched.
“Who sent you?”
The man turned his face enough to look at him.
“Ask your brother.”
Ignatio swore softly.
Danica stared at the attacker.
“You were in the ballroom.”
His smile faded.
She remembered him now.
He had been standing twenty feet behind Veto during the final dance, dressed as hotel security.
But something bothered her.
“You weren’t with Veto when Oswaldo died.”
The man said nothing.
Danica’s breathing changed.
Valerio noticed.
“What did you see?”
She looked at him.
“When I left the dance floor, I saw Oswaldo heading toward the coat room. I followed because…”
She stopped.
“Because?”
“Because I heard Veto tell one of the Felicity men that the accountant had become a problem.”
Valerio’s face went still.
Danica continued.
“Oswaldo was already down when I reached him.”
Her voice softened.
“He was alive for maybe thirty seconds.”
Ignatio turned toward her.
“You spoke to him?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
Danica looked at Valerio rather than Ignatio.
“He told me to warn you.”
Valerio swallowed once.
“What else?”
“He pushed something into my hand.”
She reached inside the folded silk at the waist of her damaged dress.
Ignatio’s hand moved toward his gun.
Valerio shot him a warning glance.
Danica removed a coat-check ticket.
Number 417.
There was blood along one corner.
“He told me not to lose it.”
Valerio took it.
“What did he say exactly?”
Danica closed her eyes briefly.
“He said, ‘Four-seventeen. The watch. Don’t let them bury it twice.’”
Silence filled the corridor.
Ignatio frowned.
“What watch?”
Valerio knew.
His father’s.
Antonio Castellion had carried an old silver pocket watch for almost forty years.
He had worn it through weddings, funerals, business negotiations, and a federal trial.
After Antonio died eleven years earlier, the watch disappeared.
Valerio had assumed someone stole it from the hospital.
Until now.
The man on the floor began laughing again.
“You people deserve each other.”
Ignatio stepped forward.
“Let me handle him.”
Danica looked sharply at him.
“No.”
Both men turned toward her.
She pointed toward the ballroom.
“If Veto is making his move, we have minutes. Maybe less.”
Valerio stood.
“She’s right.”
“What about him?” Ignatio asked.
Valerio removed the attacker’s belt and bound his wrists.
“Leave him.”
“That is a mistake.”
“So was letting Oswaldo walk alone.”
Ignatio’s jaw tightened.
The words landed harder than Valerio intended.
But there was no time to apologize.
They moved quickly through the service corridor.
Behind them, ballroom music continued as though wealthy people were not standing fifty yards from a war.
The coat-check station near the north lobby had been abandoned.
Valerio stepped behind the polished counter and searched the numbered racks.
Danica found 417 first.
“There.”
The item hanging beneath it was not a modern evening coat.
It was an old charcoal overcoat.
Valerio stopped breathing for a moment.
He knew it immediately.
His father had worn that coat every winter for twenty years.
“What is it doing here?” Ignatio asked.
“I don’t know.”
Valerio removed it carefully.
The wool still carried the faint smell of cedar from long storage.
Danica searched the pockets.
Nothing.
Ignatio checked the lining.
Empty.
Valerio almost threw it aside.
Then Danica saw the stitching.
“Wait.”
One section of the inside lining had been repaired recently.
Not professionally.
By hand.
She worked two fingers through a loose seam and pulled free a small object wrapped in yellowed cloth.
The silver pocket watch landed in her palm.
Valerio stared at it.
Eleven years.
For eleven years, that watch had been missing.
Danica handed it to him.
The metal felt cold.
Valerio pressed the release.
The lid opened.
The hands had stopped at 11:40.
Inside the opposite cover was an engraving he had never seen.
M.H.
Below it was a sequence of eight numbers.
Danica leaned closer.
Her face changed.
“What?”
She looked at Valerio.
“M.H. is Marrow Holdings.”
Ignatio said, “What is that?”
Danica answered slowly.
“A company I found buried inside your books three weeks ago.”
Valerio looked at her.
“You never mentioned it.”
“I was still tracing it.”
“Trace what?”
“Payments.”
“How much?”
“More than eighteen million dollars over seventeen years.”
Ignatio stared at her.
“To whom?”
Danica hesitated.
“The Felicity organization.”
For the first time that night, Valerio felt something colder than rage.
The payments had begun while his father was alive.
They had continued after Antonio’s death.
Someone inside the Castellion organization had been paying their enemy for almost two decades.
A door slammed nearby.
Voices followed.
They needed to move.
Valerio slipped the watch into his jacket.
Danica searched the second repaired seam.
Her fingers caught paper.
She pulled out an old photograph.
Four men stood outside a warehouse near the Chicago River.
Antonio Castellion was one of them.
A much younger Oswaldo stood beside him.
Patrick Felicity stood on the other side.
And between Antonio and Patrick was a man Valerio recognized after several seconds.
Ignatio’s father.
The photograph had been taken nearly thirty years earlier.
Before the Castellions and Felicitys supposedly became enemies.
Danica turned it over.
A recent message had been written across the back in Oswaldo’s handwriting.
Valerio read it once.
Then again.
His eyes lifted toward Ignatio.
“What does it say?” Ignatio asked.
Valerio handed him the photograph.
May you like
Oswaldo had written only one sentence.
If I am dead, Veto did not start this. Follow the watch.
