Chapter 1 - The Date Nobody Remembered
“Throw it away.”
Vanessa Bellini pointed toward the small gold watch in my palm.
It was old.
Scratched.
The leather strap had cracked with age.
The watch had stopped at 3:17.
I looked up.
“Mrs. Bellini, this belonged to Mr. Moretti's mother.”
She sighed.
Her diamond rings clicked against the mahogany table.
“Emma, it's broken.”
“Perhaps it can be repaired.”
“Perhaps you can stop arguing.”
I lowered my eyes.
“Yes, ma'am.”
“Good. Put it in the incinerator chute.”
I looked down at the watch.
A tiny inscription ran across the back.
L.M.
Lucia Moretti.
My name is Emma Sullivan.
I was twenty-eight years old.
I had worked at Luca Moretti's Chicago estate for nine months.
Before that, I had worked in my father’s antique watch shop.
I knew timepieces.
Not just their beauty.
Their anatomy.
I knew when a case had been forced open.
And this one had been pried open recently.
Three hours earlier, Vanessa had called me into the west wing.
She was clearing out the late matriarch's private suite.
Dresses.
Photographs.
Heirlooms.
And this watch.
She had handed it to me with disgust in her eyes.
“Throw this away.”
I had hesitated.
“It is solid eighteen-karat gold.”
“It is worthless junk.”
I had touched the rear plate.
The micro-screws were brand new.
Stainless steel screws in a 1980s Swiss casing.
Someone had opened it within the last week.
“Mrs. Bellini, has this been repaired recently?”
Her expression changed instantly.
Her red lips tightened.
“What?”
“The screws.”
She stepped forward.
Her perfume smelled like heavy jasmine and cold metal.
“Do not touch them.”
I stared.
“Ma'am?”
“Just throw it into the trash.”
I nodded.
I walked down the grand marble hallway.
Past the armed security guards.
Past the security cameras.
Instead of going to the incinerator, I ducked into the laundry room.
I locked the heavy door.
My hands shook.
I pulled a precision jeweler's screwdriver from my apron pocket.
I always kept my tools.
Old habits die hard.
I set the watch on a clean white towel.
I loosened the first tiny screw.
Then the second.
The rear casing popped loose.
Inside the balance wheel compartment, there was no dust.
Instead, there was a strip of folded paper.
It was parchment.
Yellowed.
Creased tightly like an accordion.
I used my tweezers to lift it free.
There were three typed lines from an old ribbon typewriter.
OCTOBER 17, 1988.
LUCA MORETTI.
ROOM 317.
My breath caught in my throat.
My chest went cold.
Luca Moretti’s birthday was October nineteenth.
The entire city knew it.
Every year, politicians and bosses came to pay tribute on the nineteenth.
Every year, the estate was flooded with black roses.
Every year, Luca drank himself numb alone in his study.
The paper clearly said October seventeenth.
Two days earlier.
Why would a mother hide her son's birth date inside a sealed watch?
The laundry door handle rattled.
The lock clicked.
A brass key turned from the outside.
Vanessa walked in.
Her eyes landed directly on the disassembled watch.
Then on the parchment in my fingers.
Her skin lost all its color.
“Give me that.”
I backed away against the industrial washing machines.
“Mrs. Bellini—”
“Give it to me right now.”
Her voice shook with fury.
I folded the paper behind my back.
“Why does this paper have Mr. Moretti's name on it?”
Her knuckles turned white.
“Because it belonged to his mother.”
“The date is wrong.”
Vanessa’s gaze narrowed into slits.
“What date?”
“It says October seventeenth.”
She froze.
Her eyes drifted to the floor.
She whispered:
“Oh, God.”
I stepped sideways toward the exit.
“Do you know what this means?”
She snapped out of her daze.
“No.”
“We should give this to Mr. Moretti.”
“No!”
She lunged forward.
“Why are you terrified of a piece of paper, Mrs. Bellini?”
Her face hardened into stone.
“Emma.”
“Yes?”
“You have a sick sister in a clinic in Evanston.”
My blood ran ice cold.
“How do you know about Claire?”
“I know everything about the staff.”
She took another step.
“Give me the paper, or your sister loses her funding tonight.”
My fingers trembled.
My ribs felt like they were collapsing.
“I cannot do that.”
Vanessa grabbed my wrist.
Her fingernails dug deep into my skin.
Pain shot up my arm.
“Give it to me, you worthless thief!”
I pulled back with all my weight.
She raised her free hand to strike me.
Footsteps echoed outside the door.
Heavy.
Rhythmic.
The door swung fully open.
Luca Moretti stood in the frame.
Six feet three inches of tailored Italian wool and raw menace.
His dark eyes took in the scene instantly.
His gaze locked onto Vanessa’s hand gripping my bleeding wrist.
“What the hell is happening here?”
Vanessa let go of me instantly.
She smoothed her designer skirt.
“Luca, darling.”
Luca did not look at her face.
He looked at the blood rising on my skin.
Then he looked at the open watch on the counter.
“Why were your hands on Emma?”
Vanessa forced a melodic laugh.
“She was caught stealing from your mother’s suite.”
Luca stepped into the room.
The air pressure dropped.
He looked down at me.
“Emma?”
I swallowed hard.
I felt my heart pounding against my teeth.
“Mrs. Bellini ordered me to burn your mother’s watch.”
Luca stopped walking.
The silence was suffocating.
Vanessa’s smile dissolved.
Luca turned his head toward his fiancée very slowly.
“My mother’s watch?”
Vanessa swallowed.
“Luca, it was broken. It was old junk in a drawer.”
Luca held out his scarred right hand toward me.
“Emma. Give it to me.”
I handed him the gold case.
He touched the cracked leather.
His thumb traced the worn initials.
“My father bought this for her the night I was born.”
His voice was a low, terrifying rasp.
“She never took it off until the day she died.”
Then his thumb caught the missing backplate.
“Why is it open?”
I held up the strip of parchment.
“Because someone concealed this inside the gear housing.”
Luca took the paper.
He unfolded it with steady fingers.
He read the first line aloud.
“OCTOBER 17, 1988.”
He stopped.
He stared at the ink.
“Where was this?”
“Behind the balance wheel, sir.”
He read the second line.
“LUCA MORETTI.”
His jaw clenched until the muscles jumped.
He read the final line.
“ROOM 317.”
Luca looked at Vanessa.
His eyes were completely black.
“My birthday is October nineteenth.”
Vanessa took a step back.
“Luca, it’s an old hospital typo. People make mistakes on paperwork.”
Luca did not blink.
“Not on engraved gold.”
He raised his voice slightly.
“Daniel!”
A tall man in a dark suit stepped through the laundry room doorway.
Daniel was the head of Luca's personal security detail.
“Yes, boss.”
“Photograph this slip.”
Daniel pulled out his phone and snapped three clear shots.
Luca pointed to the last line.
“Find out what hospital had a Room 317 registered to this date.”
Daniel nodded once.
“Right away.”
He turned on his heel and disappeared.
Luca turned his full attention back to Vanessa.
“Why did you want this watch destroyed today?”
“I didn't know the paper was in there!”
I spoke up before I could stop myself.
“She told me not to touch the screws.”
Luca’s head snapped toward me.
“What did you say?”
“When she gave it to me upstairs, she noticed the new screws.”
I met Luca’s gaze.
“She warned me not to tamper with them.”
Luca stepped closer to Vanessa.
He towered over her.
“How did you know the watch had been tampered with, Vanessa?”
Vanessa began to tremble.
Real fear showed beneath her foundation makeup.
“Luca, please. Listen to me.”
“Explain it to me.”
“I was trying to keep the family safe!”
“From what?”
“From the past!”
Before she could finish, Daniel returned down the hall.
He didn't knock.
His face was as gray as wet cement.
“Boss.”
Luca didn't take his eyes off Vanessa.
“What did you find, Daniel?”
“Room 317 was the pediatric isolation ward at St. Catherine's.”
Luca frowned.
“St. Catherine's outside Milwaukee?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That clinic was demolished twenty years ago.”
Daniel held up an iPad.
“The physical building was demolished. The digital archives were mirrored by the state.”
Luca stepped toward him.
“Why would my name be in an isolation ward two days before my birth?”
Daniel swallowed visibly.
A man who had survived three turf wars looked terrified.
“Boss... your father was the majority owner of that clinic.”
A cold draft seemed to sweep through the room.
Luca stared at his head of security.
“My father owned a hospital in Wisconsin?”
“He purchased it quietly under an LLC in September of 1988.”
Luca looked at the paper again.
“What about the records for Room 317?”
Daniel’s voice dropped to a whisper.
“There were two birth certificates issued for the same ward that week.”
Luca stopped breathing.
I held my breath.
“What do you mean, two?”
Daniel looked down at his screen.
“Both boys were registered under the exact same name.”
“Luca Moretti.”
Vanessa covered her mouth with both hands.
A sob choked in her throat.
Luca turned toward her.
He didn't yell.
His voice was dead.
“Who was the other boy, Vanessa?”
She shook her head violently.
Tears spilled down her cheeks.
“Don't make me say it.”
Luca grabbed her chin with iron fingers.
“Who was the boy born on October seventeenth?”
Vanessa looked at the watch in his hand.
Then at me.
Then back to the man she was supposed to marry in two weeks.
May you like
She whispered:
“The one your father buried under the marble stone in the family crypt.”
