Chapter 7 - The Clockmaker's Secret
The black SUV sped through the rain-slicked streets toward the downtown core.
Inside the vehicle, the air was tense.
Matteo handed me a magnifying loupe and a precision pair of steel tweezers from a first-aid kit.
“Do it carefully, Emma,” Matteo murmured.
I turned on the dome light.
I balanced the gold watch on my knee.
My hands were filthy with soot and dried blood.
I wiped my fingers on a clean linen handkerchief.
I unscrewed the delicate crown.
I pried the rear dust cover open once more.
Deep beneath the balance spring, nestled behind the third ruby jewel, lay a metallic sliver no larger than an eyelash.
I used the tweezers to extract it.
It was a microscopically engraved plate of high-density nickel.
Watchmakers used them for serial numbers.
Lucia Moretti had used it for an obituary.
I held the loupe to my right eye and angled the sliver toward the light.
Lines of microscopic text emerged.
“If you are reading this, my son is dead or grown.
Antonio traded our dying boy for Clara Sullivan’s infant.
Vincent Bellini orchestrated the theft to blackmail our house.
He has slipped arsenic into my digitalis medicine for six months.
The account containing the payoff records is UBS Geneva #8819-LM.
Burn them all, Luca. Avenge your mother.”
I lowered the loupe.
My throat was dry.
“It confirms everything,” I said.
Luca was sitting silently across from me, checking the drum magazine of an automatic shotgun.
He didn't look up.
“Read it again.”
I read the words aloud, softly, into the humming cabin of the SUV.
When I finished, Luca closed his eyes.
One single breath escaped his lips.
“She knew,” he whispered.
“She knew every day she looked at me.”
“She loved you anyway, Luca,” Matteo said quietly from the front seat.
“She raised you as her own flesh and blood.”
“She protected you from Antonio, and she hid this evidence where only a true craftsman would ever find it.”
Matteo glanced back at me in the mirror.
“She knew your father would teach you the trade, Emma.”
“She knew that sooner or later, an antique watch from the Moretti estate would find its way to Thomas Sullivan’s daughter.”
A cold realization struck me.
This wasn't a coincidence.
Nothing about this was an accident.
Lucia Moretti had planned this domino effect from the grave.
“The Drake Hotel is surrounded,” Daniel announced from the front passenger seat.
He adjusted the tactical display on his tablet.
“Two dozen Bellini foot soldiers around the perimeter.”
“Chicago police cruisers are stationed two blocks back, looking the other way.”
“Vincent bought the precinct,” Matteo muttered.
“How do we get inside?” I asked.
Luca chambered a shell with a violent, metallic snap.
“Through the front doors.”
“Luca, they will shoot you before you reach the lobby,” I warned.
Luca looked at me.
His eyes were cold, calculating, and completely fearless.
“The Commission has one absolute rule, Emma.”
“No blood may be shed on the floor of the Grand Ballroom during an official transition vote.”
“If Vincent breaks that rule, every family in America will wipe his syndicate from the map.”
“And if he doesn't care about the rules?”
Luca leaned forward and tapped the heavy barrel of his weapon.
“Then neither do I.”
The SUV screeched to a halt beneath the golden marquee of the historic Drake Hotel.
Rain cascaded off the glass awning.
Two Bellini enforcers in black overcoats stood near the brass revolving doors.
When they saw Luca step out into the rain, their jaws dropped.
Their hands moved toward their jackets.
Luca didn't even draw a gun.
He walked straight toward them.
His bloody bandages were visible beneath his open coat.
His face was streaked with soot and rain.
He looked like a man who had crawled out of his own grave.
“Out of my way,” Luca growled.
The first guard froze, terror flickering in his eyes.
“Moretti... you’re supposed to be—”
Luca grabbed the man’s lapels and slammed his head violently against the brass doorframe.
The heavy glass cracked.
The guard crumpled to the red carpet, unconscious.
The second guard raised his hands instantly, backing into the lobby.
“I’m just working a shift, boss! Don't shoot!”
“Tell Vincent the dead have arrived,” Luca said, stepping past him into the chandelier-lit lobby.
I stayed right behind him.
Matteo walked beside me, carrying the gold watch in his bare hand.
Daniel brought up the rear, his hand buried in his trench coat pocket, finger resting on the trigger of an automatic weapon.
We took the grand staircase.
Every step was covered in thick burgundy carpet.
At the top of the stairs stood the towering double doors of the Grand Ballroom.
Muffled voices drifted from inside.
Laughter.
The clinking of champagne flutes.
Vincent Bellini was celebrating his coronation.
Luca stopped at the threshold.
He reached out and pushed the massive oak doors open with both hands.
The heavy doors slammed back against the interior walls with a sound like thunder.
The music stopped.
The laughter died instantly.
Sixty mobsters, dons, and capos turned their heads in unison.
At the far end of the room, on a raised dais beneath a massive crystal chandelier, stood Vincent Bellini.
Beside him stood Vanessa, wearing an emerald green silk gown.
Vincent held a crystal glass in the air.
His hand froze mid-toast.
May you like
The glass slipped from his fingers.
It shattered against the parquet floor.
