Chapter 3 - THE TICKING POCKET WATCH
"Don't leave that here," I gasped, staring at the scarred silver watch resting beside the salt shaker.
Dominic didn't pick it up. "Turn it over."
Outside, the low, throaty rumble of a modified engine echoed off the brick buildings across the street. The diner's plate-glass window vibrated slightly. Rosie hurried out from behind the counter, clutching an ancient landline telephone against her chest. "Emma, honey, who is out there? Should I call the precinct?"
"No," Dominic said, turning his head toward Rosie with polite, chilling calm. "Do not call the precinct. Three of the desk sergeants in this district report directly to Paul Falcone. If you call them, you give them a reason to file an incident report on this address. You close your blinds, lock your deadbolt, and go home to your sister in Queens for two days. Understood?"
Rosie swallowed hard, looked from Dominic’s icy posture to my pale face, and nodded once before disappearing into the back office.
My fingers reached for the watch. The metal was heavy, cold against my skin, and noticeably weighted toward the hinge. When I flipped it over, my thumb brushed across initials engraved in faded, ornate script on the casing:
R. H.
Robert Harris.
My father's watch.
"He wore this every single day," I whispered, the room blurring behind a veil of sudden tears. "When the hospital gave us his personal effects the night he died, they told us his watch had been lost in the street impact. They said the chain snapped."
"The chain didn't snap," Dominic said, stepping toward the diner's side emergency exit while two of his security men drew the blinds shut with swift, practiced precision. "My uncle took it from the scene before the paramedics arrived. He took it to keep your family from looking into the company. For fourteen years, it sat in a safe in my uncle's study."
"Your uncle?" My mind spun. Dominic’s uncle was Silvio Salvatore—the legendary, reclusive elder statesman of the family who had stepped down after Dominic took control two years ago. "Why would he hide it?"
"That is what I intend to find out tonight," Dominic answered, his jaw tightening into iron. "My uncle told me your father was compensated and that your family moved to Michigan. When my scouts found you working three miles from the rail yards, living month-to-month with a six-year-old child, I realized my uncle had lied to my face."
He had answered where the watch came from. But the revelation opened two deeper, more terrifying chasms: If Silvio had stolen the watch to bury the crime, had the elder Salvatore family orchestrated my father's death after all? And had Dominic been lured into that car explosion three weeks ago by his own blood?
"Get your jacket, Emma," Dominic ordered. "We leave together."
"I am not getting into an SUV with you!"
"You don't have a choice," he snapped, his voice shedding its polite veneer, revealing the ruthless authority that kept an underworld empire in line. "The car circling this diner isn't Falcone's. The vehicle registration belongs to Silvio's personal estate in Bedford. My own family knows I am here. And they know you are holding the proof that my uncle was in business with Falcone."
The glass of the front window suddenly shattered with a deafening crack.
A projectile—not a bullet, but a heavy steel bolt wrapped in industrial wire—tore through the glass, embedding itself into the drywall inches above table four.
Old Mr. Chen ducked under his booth with a terrified wail.
"Rear exit! Now!" Dominic roared, grabbing my arm with a grip like steel and shoving me behind him as his men formed a moving wall of broad shoulders and Kevlar-lined jackets.
I didn't think about my apron, my tips, or my coat. I grabbed the folder and my father's watch, shoving them into the waistband of my slacks. We burst through the kitchen, past the smelling grease of the deep fryers, and tumbled out into the narrow alleyway behind the diner.
The rain was falling in thick, freezing sheets.
A black SUV stood idling, its rear door already open. Dominic shoved me into the leather seat and dove in behind me just as a high-powered rifle round punched a neat, smoking hole through the brick wall beside the doorway we had just cleared.
The driver slammed his foot onto the gas. The tires screeched against wet asphalt, hurling me back into the upholstery.
"Where is your daughter?" Dominic demanded, his eyes scanning the side mirrors as gunfire cracked in the distance behind us.
"With Mrs. Gable," I stammered, my heart beating so hard I could hear it in my ears. "Third floor of our building on 4th Street. Please, God, Dominic... they can't touch her. She's only six!"
Dominic pulled an encrypted handset from his pocket and barked a single command: "Alpha team. Fourth Street apartment building. Secure the child and the sitter immediately. Non-lethal unless fired upon. Move!"
He threw the phone down, then turned his gaze back to me. His hand reached out, hovering for a fraction of a second before gently steadying my trembling shoulder.
"Look at me, Emma," he commanded softly.
I looked into his eyes. There was no cruelty there. Only an immense, terrifying focus.
"I promised you I pay my debts," he said. "Nobody touches your daughter. Not Falcone. And not my uncle."
He reached over and clicked open the back casing of my father's watch with his thumbnail. Inside the mechanism, resting where the balance wheel should have been spinning, was not a gear.
It was a tiny, notched brass key, stamped with a four-digit safe-deposit number: 1984.
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"Silvio didn't keep the watch as a trophy," Dominic whispered, staring at the brass key. "He kept it because your father hid something inside it that could destroy both our families."
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