Chapter 2 - THE SILVER WATCH
I didn’t wait for Gabriel.
I didn’t wait for his men.
I turned and ran toward the front doors, my dress shoes slipping on the polished marble. My heart hammered against my ribs, a sickening rhythm of dread.
“Claire, stop!” Luke yelled, stepping into my path.
Gabriel’s heavy cane cracked against the floor, the sound like a gunshot echoing through the massive foyer.
“Move,” Gabriel commanded. His voice wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be.
Luke froze. For a second, the polished, confident man I thought I knew fractured, revealing something panicked and small underneath. He stepped aside.
I burst through the heavy oak doors and into the crisp morning air.
Three black SUVs were parked in the circular driveway. The trunk of the middle one—Luke’s car—was wide open. Two massive men in dark suits were pulling a figure out of the back.
It was my father.
His suit was torn. His lip was split, bleeding down his chin. His hands were bound behind his back with heavy zip-ties.
“Dad!” I screamed, rushing forward.
One of the guards stepped back, letting me fall to my knees on the gravel beside him.
My father looked up at me. His eyes were bruised, but the look in them wasn’t pain. It was sheer terror.
“Claire,” he rasped. “You shouldn’t… you can’t be here.”
“What did he do to you?” My hands hovered over his battered face, terrified of hurting him more. “Did Luke do this?”
Behind me, the gravel crunched. Gabriel walked down the steps, his limp barely noticeable, his presence suffocating the space around us. Luke trailed behind him, his face ashen.
Gabriel looked down at my father. “Cut the ties,” he ordered his men.
A knife flashed. The plastic snapped.
My father pulled his hands forward, gasping in pain. But he didn’t look at me. He looked straight at Gabriel.
“I was trying to stop the wedding,” my father choked out, his voice trembling. “I found out the truth last night. I came to the venue early. Luke caught me in the parking lot.”
“You’re a liar,” Luke snapped, stepping forward. “He was trying to extort me for more money, Gabriel. He threatened to ruin the ceremony.”
Gabriel didn’t even look at his brother. He kept his cold, assessing eyes on my father. “Why did you try to stop it? You signed the contract six months ago. You sold her.”
“I didn’t sell her for the money!” my father yelled, tears cutting through the dirt on his face. “I signed it to keep them alive! But the twenty-five million… it wasn’t going to me.”
I stared at him. “What are you talking about? You said the Morettis paid for Leo’s hospital bills.”
“They did,” my father cried. “But that was a fraction of the cost. The twenty-five million in that contract… it was a payout. A bribe.”
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed. “To who?”
My father reached into his torn jacket pocket with shaking hands. He pulled out a heavy, tarnished silver pocket watch. I recognized it immediately. It belonged to my grandfather.
My father fumbled with the clasp and popped the back casing off. He tipped it over.
A tiny, black micro-USB drive fell into his palm.
“I found this in my office three days ago,” my father whispered, handing it up to Gabriel. “Someone broke in and hid it there. I finally looked at it last night. The twenty-five million wasn't coming from the Morettis. It was coming from Senator Callahan’s offshore accounts. He was routing it through Luke.”
The silence that followed was deafening.
Gabriel took the small black drive. He turned it over in his large, scarred hand.
I looked at Luke. The panic was gone from his face, replaced by a cold, calculating mask.
“You routed Callahan’s dirty money through my accounts?” Gabriel asked softly. The quietness of his voice was terrifying.
“Callahan needed a clean transfer,” Luke said, his tone defensive. “He’s running for governor. He couldn't have that much cash moving without a shell. I provided the shell.”
“And Claire?” Gabriel asked, his eyes snapping to me, then back to his brother. “Where does my wife fit into this?”
My father coughed, spitting a mixture of blood and saliva onto the gravel. “Claire is the key. The money doesn't move until she’s married to a Moretti. Because Callahan doesn't just want clean money. He wants the Bennett land.”
I froze.
The Bennett land. A useless, fifty-acre stretch of rocky forest in upstate New York that my grandfather had left me in his will. It was worth nothing. It had been sitting untouched for decades.
Gabriel looked at the micro-drive, then at Luke.
“This isn't about Isabella,” Gabriel said, the realization settling over him like a dark cloud. “This is about what’s buried on her grandfather’s property.”
He looked down at my father. “What’s on this drive?”
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My father swallowed hard, his eyes darting to Luke.
“It’s the ledger,” my father whispered. “It proves Callahan orchestrated the hit on you five years ago, Gabriel. The one where you took those bullets. And it proves Luke helped him do it.”
