Chapter 4 - THE WATCH THAT NEVER STOPPED
Roman wanted to leave for Pennsylvania immediately.
Lena stopped him.
Not with a plea.
With one sentence.
“If Anthony wanted you in Bryn Mawr, running there angry is exactly what he expected.”
Roman looked at her.
There she was.
Not the frightened woman in the hospital gown.
His Lena.
The woman who once talked him out of starting a war over a warehouse because she noticed the invoices were forged.
Roman nodded once.
“Then we don’t run.”
Eleanor watched them.
Something like grief crossed her face.
Roman ignored it.
Caleb returned with Sophie asleep in his arms.
Three marshmallows had apparently defeated the adrenaline.
Roman stared at his daughter.
Then at Lena.
“Can I?”
Lena hesitated.
It lasted only two seconds.
It felt longer.
Then she nodded.
Caleb transferred Sophie carefully.
The little girl stirred against Roman’s chest.
Her hand caught his shirt.
“Daddy?”
Roman’s eyes closed.
“I’m here.”
Sophie immediately fell asleep again.
Roman stood motionless.
For three years, he had dreamed about holding her.
In every dream she was still a baby.
He had never imagined the weight of a three-year-old child who had learned to live without him.
Tessa looked away.
So did Eleanor.
Later, after Sophie was settled beside Lena in a secure upstairs room, Roman returned to the medical corridor.
On the table waited Anthony’s old possessions recovered from the mausoleum.
A wallet.
A pair of cuff links.
A broken fountain pen.
And his watch.
Roman remembered it from childhood.
Gold case.
Brown leather strap.
Anthony checked it constantly.
He used to tell Roman that powerful men were never late because late men allowed somebody else to control the room.
The watch should have stopped decades ago.
It was ticking.
Roman picked it up.
“Caleb.”
His security chief examined the back.
Recent scratches circled the casing.
Caleb opened it.
Inside the cover, beneath the mechanism, was a thin brass key.
Tessa frowned.
“He hid a key in a watch?”
Roman looked at the train ticket.
“Because watches get buried with dead men.”
The key had a number stamped into it.
Caleb searched the Hawthorne inventory.
No matching lock.
Tessa took the key.
“This isn’t a door key.”
“How do you know?”
“My catering company rents station lockers for event equipment.”
She turned it over.
“Old railroad locker.”
Roman looked at the ticket again.
Bryn Mawr.
Three hours later, Roman, Caleb, and Tessa entered the nearly empty station.
Roman had wanted Lena to remain with Sophie.
For once, Lena agreed without argument.
Her body was too weak.
Her mind wasn’t.
Before he left, she had gripped his sleeve.
“Bring Nicholas home.”
Not find him.
Bring him home.
Roman carried those words into the station.
Locker 317 was in an older corridor scheduled for renovation.
The brass key fit.
Inside sat a child’s red backpack.
Roman stopped breathing.
Tessa touched his arm.
He opened it.
A small green sweater.
Wooden train.
Half a box of animal crackers.
And a photograph.
Roman sitting on the steps of his Manhattan home at age six.
Beside him stood a boy perhaps two years older.
Roman had no memory of him.
On the back:
MICHAEL AND GABRIEL — SUMMER 1994.
Roman’s fingers went numb.
“That’s Gabriel,” Tessa said.
Roman stared at the boy who had eventually been buried beneath Anthony’s name.
Gabriel had Marianne’s eyes.
Roman knew that instantly because they were Roman’s eyes too.
Gray.
Not Eleanor’s brown.
Not Anthony’s nearly black.
Marianne’s.
Beneath the photograph sat an envelope.
No documents.
No confession.
Just a cassette tape and another photograph.
This one showed Anthony in recent years.
Older.
Thinner.
Standing beside a small blond boy in a park.
Nicholas.
Roman’s son.
Tessa whispered, “Oh, God.”
Roman turned the picture over.
A date.
Eight months ago.
Anthony had been with Nicholas eight months earlier.
Roman shoved the photograph toward Caleb.
“Find the park.”
Caleb studied a building sign in the background.
“I know it.”
Roman looked up.
“Where?”
“New Jersey.”
That made no sense.
The ticket was Pennsylvania.
The locker was Pennsylvania.
But the photograph was New Jersey.
A trail designed to confuse.
Or to teach him something.
Roman inserted the cassette into an old player bolted inside the locker.
Anthony’s voice emerged.
“If you found the watch, Eleanor finally stopped controlling the story.”
Roman’s jaw tightened.
Anthony continued.
“Your name was Michael Anthony Vale when I first held you.”
Roman stared at the floor.
“Marianne was your mother. I was your father.”
There it was.
No ambiguity.
Anthony was his biological father.
“Eleanor’s son Roman died three days after birth. She never recovered. Marianne became pregnant during a separation Eleanor and I never admitted publicly.”
Tessa looked at Roman.
Roman did not move.
“I brought you into my house because Marianne was in danger.”
Anthony paused.
“Eleanor did not steal you.”
Roman’s eyes closed.
Another belief overturned.
“She saved you.”
The tape crackled.
“Marianne had two sons. Gabriel and you. When men came looking for Marianne because of me, Eleanor hid both boys under D’Angelo protection.”
Roman looked at the photograph again.
He and Gabriel.
Together.
“Why don’t I remember him?” Roman whispered.
Anthony’s recording answered almost as if he heard.
“You were seven when Gabriel was taken away. Eleanor told you he was an imaginary friend because remembering him would have led you to Marianne.”
Roman’s stomach turned.
“Years later, Gabriel found me.”
Anthony’s voice grew rough.
“He was seventeen. Angry. Brave. Too much like his mother.”
Roman knew what came next.
“The night the world was told I died, Gabriel was driving with me.”
A long pause.
“We were attacked.”
Roman looked toward Caleb.
“The car burned.”
Anthony said, “Gabriel dragged me out.”
Roman shut his eyes.
“He died before help arrived.”
Tessa covered her mouth.
“And I did the most cowardly thing I ever did.”
Anthony’s voice broke.
“I let the world believe his body was mine.”
Roman sat heavily on the station bench.
His brother had died saving Anthony.
Then been buried under Anthony’s name.
“He deserved his own grave,” Anthony said.
“He deserved his own name.”
The tape clicked.
Roman expected silence.
Instead Anthony continued.
“And Nicholas deserves his father.”
Roman stood.
“I never wanted your son.”
Roman stared at the machine.
“I took him from Eleanor because she was becoming what she feared.”
Eleanor.
Not Anthony.
“She believed hiding the children was the same as saving them.”
Roman’s hand tightened.
“I moved Nicholas because someone else discovered Hawthorne.”
Roman glanced at Caleb.
“Someone inside your family.”
The tape distorted.
Then Anthony spoke one final sentence.
“Roman, if Caleb is standing beside you, don’t say another word.”
May you like
Roman slowly turned.
Caleb was already pointing a gun at Tessa.
