Chapter 2 - THE WATCH THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN BURIED
“Take your hand out from under that table, Samuel.”
Luca Moretti's voice was quiet, but every person in the dining room heard him.
Samuel Pierce froze.
The retired federal investigator sat beneath the chandeliers, his right hand hidden below the white tablecloth. On his left wrist gleamed the gold watch Anthony Moretti had supposedly been buried with fourteen years earlier.
Daniel, Luca's security chief, moved closer.
“Both hands where I can see them, Mr. Pierce.”
Samuel slowly raised his right hand.
Between his fingers was a tiny black object.
A memory card.
Vanessa Bellini gasped.
“Samuel, what are you doing?”
He looked at her with an expression I couldn't understand.
“Trying to keep a terrible mistake from becoming another one.”
Luca stepped forward.
“Put it on the table.”
Samuel obeyed.
I was still kneeling beside Rosa Moretti's wheelchair, holding the old dinner jacket across my lap. Her trembling fingers gripped my sleeve.
The whole evening had changed in less than twenty minutes.
I'd been fired for helping an elderly woman sew a button.
Now the man who had investigated her husband's death was sitting ten feet away, wearing the dead man's watch.
And nobody was laughing anymore.
Luca pointed toward the gold casing.
“Where did you get that?”
Samuel swallowed.
“Your father gave it to me.”
Rosa struck her wheelchair armrest.
Three sharp taps.
“No.”
Luca looked at her.
“Mom?”
She pointed toward the watch.
Then toward Samuel.
“Before... dead.”
Samuel closed his eyes.
For the first time, I realized Rosa wasn't simply remembering a painful event.
She was trying to correct a lie she'd been forced to live with for fourteen years.
Victor Bellini rose from his chair.
“This has gone far enough. Samuel is an honored former federal officer. You cannot accuse him of murder over a watch.”
Luca turned.
“Nobody said murder.”
Victor's face changed.
It was small.
Just a tightening around his mouth.
But I noticed.
So did Luca.
“Interesting that you chose that word,” Luca said.
Vanessa stepped between them.
“Please. My father is seventy years old. This kind of confrontation isn't good for anyone.”
Luca looked at her.
“You searched my mother's bedroom yesterday.”
Vanessa lowered her eyes.
“You don't understand why.”
“Then tell me.”
She glanced toward Samuel.
He shook his head almost imperceptibly.
And she went silent.
Luca took off his engagement ring and placed it beside his untouched dessert.
“We are not discussing our wedding again until I know what happened to my father.”
Vanessa stared at the ring.
For one moment, all the confidence she'd displayed while humiliating me disappeared.
“I loved you before you had any reason to trust me,” she whispered.
“Then tell me the truth while there's still something left to save.”
Daniel received a quiet instruction from Luca. The household gates would remain closed long enough for the authorities to secure the evidence, but guests who wished to leave could wait in the adjoining sitting room.
Nobody was to be threatened or detained unlawfully.
Luca was careful about that.
His reputation frightened people, but he understood that anger could ruin evidence faster than any criminal.
Samuel's memory card remained untouched on the table.
Then Rosa reached for her sewing kit.
I opened it.
Inside lay her thimble, three spools of black thread, and the little silver scissors she'd used to make those warning taps.
She pointed toward Samuel's watch again.
“Back.”
Samuel shook his head.
“Rosa, please.”
“Back,” she repeated.
Luca bent beside her.
“You want us to look at the back of the watch?”
She nodded.
Samuel's face went white.
Daniel brought a clean linen napkin.
“Mr. Pierce, please remove it and place it here.”
For several seconds, Samuel didn't move.
Then he unfastened the clasp.
A pale indentation circled his wrist where the watch had rested for years.
He set it down.
Luca leaned over the table.
The Moretti family crest was engraved beside the clasp.
But beneath it, almost hidden by scratches, were two tiny initials.
R.M.
Luca touched the table.
“Mom's initials.”
Rosa shook her head.
Then pointed to herself.
“Made.”
I understood.
“Mrs. Moretti, did you have the watch engraved?”
She nodded eagerly.
Then she pointed toward the back plate.
“Open.”
Samuel stood so suddenly his chair tipped backward.
“Don't!”
Daniel caught the chair.
Luca stared at the older man.
“What is inside it?”
Samuel's voice broke.
“Something your father wanted destroyed.”
Rosa began shaking her head.
I placed a hand gently over hers.
“It's all right. We can take our time.”
But she was already searching inside the sewing kit.
She pulled out a faded photograph.
Anthony Moretti stood beside a much younger Rosa outside a small neighborhood tailor shop.
He wore the black jacket.
And on his wrist was the watch.
On the back of the photograph, in careful handwriting, were six words.
For our fortieth anniversary. Love, Anthony.
Luca's face softened.
“I remember that photograph.”
Rosa touched his cheek.
Then she whispered, “Not yours.”
He frowned.
“What?”
She pointed toward the watch.
“Mine.”
The discovery changed everything.
Anthony hadn't simply owned an expensive heirloom.
He'd given it to Rosa.
Samuel had been wearing a gift stolen from a grieving widow.
Victor looked suddenly exhausted.
“Samuel, give them what they want.”
Samuel stared at him.
“You know what happens if I do.”
Victor didn't answer.
Luca looked from one man to the other.
“What exactly are you protecting?”
Samuel sank back into his chair.
“The truth about why your father died.”
The room fell silent.
Luca's jaw tightened.
“Then start talking.”
But Samuel shook his head.
“You won't believe me without the recording.”
He looked toward the metal storage device I'd removed from Anthony's cuff.
“That contains most of the financial records. The watch holds the hardware key that unlocks the protected files.”
Luca frowned.
“Then why did my mother write that the button wasn't the key?”
Samuel looked at Rosa.
“Because she knew the button was only a decoy.”
A sharp breath escaped Vanessa.
I looked down at the old jacket.
Four black buttons on the right cuff.
Three on the left.
The missing one had sent everyone searching the wrong place.
Rosa reached toward my hand.
“Rachel. Stitch.”
I looked at her.
“Which stitch?”
She tapped the narrow white strip embroidered with the words LISTEN BEFORE SIGNING.
Then she pointed toward the jacket's inner pocket.
I carefully turned it inside out.
Along the pocket seam were several tiny stitches made with red thread.
Different from the black stitching everywhere else.
I had seen them three days earlier.
I'd assumed they were an old repair.
But Rosa was staring at them with unmistakable urgency.
“Your grandmother taught you that stitch, didn't she?” Luca asked.
I nodded.
“A hidden ladder stitch. You can close an opening without leaving a visible seam.”
Rosa gave my hand a weak squeeze.
“Open.”
I slipped the seam ripper beneath the red thread.
One stitch.
Then another.
A small envelope slid out.
Its paper had yellowed with age.
Across the front, written in Anthony Moretti's handwriting, were two words.
FOR LUCA.
Luca took the envelope with trembling hands.
Inside was a folded note and a second photograph.
He read the note silently.
Then again.
His face changed.
“What does it say?” Vanessa whispered.
Luca slowly lifted his eyes toward Samuel.
“My father wrote this on the night he died.”
Samuel gripped the edge of his chair.
Luca unfolded the note.
And read aloud.
“Samuel has my watch. If anything happens to me, ask Rosa why she let him take it.”
Rosa began crying.
Luca turned toward his mother.
“Mom, why did you let him take your watch?”
She struggled for breath.
I handed her the pen.
Her shaking hand moved across the napkin.
Three words appeared.
TO SAVE LUCA.
Then Luca looked at the photograph.
It showed Anthony standing outside the federal building.
Beside him was Samuel Pierce.
And between them stood a young woman holding a little boy's hand.
Luca stared.
The woman was Rosa.
The boy was himself.
But the date printed at the bottom of the photograph was the day after his father's official time of death.
Samuel's voice barely carried across the table.
“Anthony wasn't at the federal building that day, Luca.”
Luca looked up.
“Then why does the photograph show my father?”
Samuel shook his head.
“That's not Anthony.”
Luca turned the picture toward the light.
The man looked exactly like his father.
Same face.
Same hair.
Same black jacket.
Then Rosa touched the man's sleeve in the photograph.
And whispered two words.
“Your uncle.”
Luca went completely still.
“My father didn't have a brother.”
Rosa closed her eyes.
Samuel looked toward Victor.
May you like
And Victor Bellini finally spoke.
“HE DID. AND HE WAS THE MAN YOUR FATHER WAS TRYING TO PUT IN PRISON.”
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