Chapter 3 - THE WATCH THAT STOPPED AT 8:17
Dominic drove himself.
That frightened me more than the security men.
He barely spoke during the fifteen-minute ride to his penthouse.
The photograph lay on the console between us.
He knows about Casey.
I had been born six months after my father died.
Yet somehow, before his death, my father had believed Salvatore Carbone knew about me.
Knew I existed.
Or knew I would.
“What does Sal know about you?” Dominic asked.
“I was hoping you knew.”
“I didn’t know your name two hours ago.”
“Comforting.”
His mouth tightened.
Under different circumstances, it might have been almost a smile.
We reached the penthouse shortly before one in the morning.
Dominic went directly to a study overlooking Central Park.
He opened a wall safe.
No theatrical combination.
No stacks of cash.
Just passports, folders, a handgun, his mother’s rosary—
and a small velvet box.
Dominic removed it.
Inside rested a gold pocket watch.
Old.
Heavy.
Scratched around the edges.
He held it for a moment before handing it to me.
The hands were frozen.
8:17.
“My father carried that for thirty years.”
I turned it over.
Initials were engraved on the back.
C.R.
“Did you ever open the case?”
“To repair it.”
“After he died?”
“Once.”
I pressed the release.
The rear cover opened normally.
Gears.
Metal.
Nothing else.
Dominic frowned.
“That’s it.”
I remembered the photograph.
Carlo holding the watch.
My father holding the pen.
I removed my fountain pen from my bag.
Dominic watched.
“What are you doing?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Along the pen cap was a thin brass ridge I had always assumed was decorative.
I pressed it against a narrow groove inside the watch housing.
Click.
Dominic stopped breathing.
A second metal plate released.
Beneath it was a tiny folded photograph.
Not paper.
Photographic film.
Dominic carried it toward his desk lamp.
The image showed three men standing beside a table.
Carlo.
My father.
Sal.
On the table sat the leather ledger.
At the bottom of the film someone had scratched:
CUSTODY. NOT OWNERSHIP.
Dominic’s face went hard.
“There’s more.”
A number had been engraved into the hidden plate.
M-1954-17
I recognized the format.
“Archive index.”
“For what?”
“Probably the original settlement file.”
Dominic reached for his phone.
Before he touched it, the study door opened.
Victoria stood there.
Still wearing the dark coat from the restaurant.
Her makeup was gone.
Her hair had begun to fall from the perfect twist she wore at dinner.
She looked exhausted.
Then she saw the watch in my hand.
All the color left her face.
“You opened it.”
Dominic turned toward his wife.
“You knew?”
Victoria closed the door.
“I knew the watch mattered.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“No.”
Her voice cracked slightly.
“I didn’t know what was inside.”
Dominic held up the film.
“Sal did.”
Victoria looked at it.
Her expression changed.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
I noticed.
“So you’ve seen that image before,” I said.
Her eyes snapped toward me.
Dominic’s voice became colder.
“Answer her.”
Victoria removed her coat.
For the first time that evening, she looked less like a woman born to command rooms and more like someone carrying something too heavy.
“Three years ago,” she said, “I found a copy in Sal’s office.”
Dominic stared at her.
“You were in his office?”
“He asked me to retrieve a merger file.”
“And?”
“I opened the wrong drawer.”
She looked at the photograph.
“There were records about your father. Casey’s father. Adler. German claims. Properties in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Chicago.”
“You said nothing.”
“I confronted Sal.”
I laughed once.
Not because it was funny.
Because suddenly everything made sense.
“The contract.”
Victoria looked at me.
“He told me the trust issue was historical. Technical. That correcting ownership language would protect Dominic from claims based on mistakes his father made.”
“You believed him?”
“At first.”
Dominic’s voice cut through the room.
“At first?”
Victoria looked at her husband.
“Then he showed me what would happen if the claims reopened.”
“What?”
“Asset seizures. Investigations. Frozen businesses. Thousands of employees caught in it.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“So you changed documents.”
“I approved language Sal gave me.”
“You lied to me.”
“I tried to keep your father’s sins from becoming yours.”
Helena had been right.
Victoria was guilty.
But not of what I first thought.
She hadn’t been trying to steal Dominic’s empire.
She had been trying to preserve it.
That didn’t excuse what she had done to me.
It did make her human.
Dominic walked toward her.
“Why were you afraid of Casey?”
Victoria looked at me.
For several seconds, she said nothing.
Then her shoulders dropped.
“Because Sal warned me years ago that if anyone named Miller ever started asking about German trust law, I was to call him immediately.”
I felt cold.
“He knew my name?”
“Not Casey.”
She shook her head.
“Miller.”
Dominic looked toward me.
My father hadn’t written He knows about Casey because Sal knew my personal identity.
He meant Sal knew about my father’s unborn child.
An heir.
A future problem.
Victoria reached inside her handbag.
“I came here because I found something after we left the restaurant.”
She placed a fountain pen on Dominic’s desk.
Identical to mine.
Except for the initials on the gold clip.
C.R.
Dominic stared at it.
“My father’s.”
“I found it in Sal’s office three years ago.”
“And you kept it?”
“I stole it.”
For the first time, Victoria almost smiled.
“I wasn’t always obedient.”
I placed my pen beside Carlo’s.
Mine carried tiny initials I had never paid attention to.
J.M.
A matched pair.
My father and Dominic’s father.
Dominic looked between them.
“Why plant Carlo’s pen in my office tonight?”
Victoria shook her head.
“I didn’t.”
“Someone did.”
“And whoever did it knew Casey had Jonathan’s.”
A terrible thought formed.
The person setting this in motion wasn’t simply trying to expose Victoria.
They wanted Dominic and me in the same room.
They wanted the watches, pens, ledger, and old trust pulled back into daylight.
Dominic picked up his father’s pen.
Something rattled.
He unscrewed the barrel.
A narrow strip of paper slid out.
Victoria whispered, “Oh my God.”
Dominic unfolded it.
One line.
One signature.
And one name.
EVELYN MILLER.
My mother.
Below it were the words:
Witness to transfer. March 18, 1999.
I stared at the signature.
I knew it.
Birthday cards.
Christmas checks.
Permission slips.
My mother had signed a transfer involving Dominic Russo’s family six months before my father died.
May you like
And she had never told me.
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