Chapter 2 - THE WATCH SILAS BROUGHT HER
The first file on Serafina’s laptop contained Alessandro Moretti’s name.
The second contained his father’s.
The third contained hers.
Serafina stopped breathing.
Across the top of the encrypted spreadsheet were seven corporations registered in Luxembourg, Monaco, Cyprus, and Switzerland.
Forty million euros had moved through them in pieces.
Seven million.
Four million.
Eleven.
Three.
Nothing large enough to trigger the wrong kind of attention.
Everything deliberate.
At the bottom was one line her father had highlighted three years earlier.
FINAL BENEFICIARY: S.M.
Serafina’s pulse kicked.
S.M.
Serafina Torres made no sense.
But neither did Alessandro Moretti.
Behind her, Clara shifted beneath the blanket.
“You’re home.”
Serafina slammed the laptop halfway closed.
Her younger sister pushed herself upright.
At nineteen, Clara still looked seventeen when she was tired.
Her dark hair stuck to one cheek.
“You’re supposed to be sleeping.”
“I was.”
Clara frowned.
“You look terrible.”
“Thank you.”
“You know what I mean.”
Serafina crossed the room and touched her forehead.
No fever.
The cough she had been fighting for two weeks had finally begun easing.
No blood.
Whoever sent that message had known exactly which fear would bring Serafina running.
That meant they knew about Clara.
The thought made her stomach knot.
Clara looked toward the laptop.
“Did you find something?”
“Maybe.”
“You always say maybe when the answer is yes.”
“I also say maybe when I don’t want you involved.”
Clara folded her arms.
“That’s rude.”
“It’s older-sister privilege.”
A small sound came from the hallway.
Not a knock.
A footstep.
Then another.
Serafina turned.
The apartment building was old enough that she knew every board that creaked.
Someone was climbing the final flight slowly.
Carefully.
She shut the laptop and reached beneath the kitchen drawer for the narrow knife she kept taped underneath.
Clara saw it.
Her face changed.
“Serafina.”
“Bedroom.”
“No.”
“Clara.”
That tone worked.
Barely.
Her sister slipped behind the thin partition just as Serafina stepped into the hall.
Silas Rocco stood at the top of the stairs.
His expensive black coat was soaked with rain.
No visible weapon.
His right hand remained deliberately away from his body.
“You.”
His gaze moved to the knife.
“If I wanted to hurt you, I would have brought fewer manners.”
“You sent the message.”
“Yes.”
“My sister never coughed blood.”
“No.”
Serafina took another step toward him.
“You frightened me deliberately.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Alessandro’s men left the Obsidian through the front.”
Silas glanced toward the stairwell below.
“Vincenzo’s left through the kitchen.”
That made her pause.
“Vincenzo Bellori?”
“The accountant you embarrassed in front of twelve men.”
“I didn’t embarrass him.”
“You almost stopped his heart.”
“Still not an answer.”
Silas looked tired.
“I needed you out of the restaurant before Bellori decided whether you knew too much.”
Serafina tightened her grip on the knife.
“And Alessandro?”
“Wanted you brought back.”
“Alive?”
Silas gave her a flat look.
“Mr. Moretti is cruel when angry. He is not stupid.”
“That is not comforting.”
“It wasn’t intended to be.”
Clara appeared behind Serafina anyway.
Of course she did.
Silas immediately looked away from the bedroom area.
The gesture was oddly respectful.
Clara whispered, “Is that the man from the restaurant?”
Serafina looked at her sharply.
“How do you know about the restaurant?”
“You forgot your tablet open yesterday.”
Silas’s mouth moved.
Not quite a smile.
Serafina pointed toward the bedroom.
“Inside.”
Clara ignored her and looked at Silas.
“Are you going to kill us?”
“No.”
His answer was immediate.
Clara studied him.
“You look like you kill people.”
“Clara.”
“What?”
Silas sighed.
“I have.”
Clara blinked.
Then retreated.
“Good decision,” Serafina muttered.
Silas reached inside his coat.
The knife rose.
He stopped.
“Slowly.”
He removed a small cloth bundle.
Old linen.
Brown stains.
He held it toward her.
“This belonged to your father.”
The words hit harder than any threat could have.
Serafina did not take it.
“Where did you get that?”
“From him.”
“You knew Gabriel?”
“Yes.”
“My father hated the Morettis.”
“No.”
Silas’s voice softened.
“Your father hated what men did when nobody forced them to answer for it.”
“That sounds like something people say about dead men after lying to them while they were alive.”
Silas accepted the accusation.
“I lied to him.”
“About what?”
“Me.”
He opened the cloth.
Inside lay a silver wristwatch.
Cracked face.
Dark leather strap.
Serafina forgot how to breathe.
She knew that watch.
Her father wore it every day.
He had been wearing it the afternoon he died.
The police returned his wallet.
His ring.
His shoes.
Never the watch.
She had assumed whoever murdered him stole it.
She reached for it with shaking fingers.
The hands had stopped at 2:17.
The crystal was broken over the six.
“What happened at 2:17?”
Silas looked at her.
“I found him at 2:23.”
The hallway seemed to tilt.
“You found my father?”
“Yes.”
“Alive?”
Silas hesitated.
That tiny pause was enough to make rage rise into her throat.
“Was he alive?”
“For less than a minute.”
Serafina’s hand closed around the watch.
“What did he say?”
Silas looked toward Clara.
Then back to Serafina.
“He said, ‘Don’t let them make my daughters pay for my mistake.’”
Clara made a small sound behind her.
Serafina could not turn around.
“What mistake?”
“He didn’t tell me.”
“You expect me to believe his last words were about us and you waited three years?”
“No.”
Silas’s voice hardened.
“I waited because the man who ordered your father killed sat at Alessandro’s family table.”
Cold spread through her.
“Who?”
“I didn’t know then.”
“And now?”
“I know enough to be afraid of the answer.”
He nodded toward the watch.
“Turn it over.”
Serafina did.
The engraving on the back had been almost rubbed smooth.
To G.
For keeping what I could not.
—V.
She stared.
“My mother’s name was Elena.”
“I know.”
“Then who is V?”
Silas said nothing.
The answer came from Clara.
“Vittorio.”
Serafina turned.
Clara had gone pale.
“What?”
She pointed toward the hidden wall compartment.
“Dad had another picture.”
Serafina stared at her.
“What picture?”
“After he died, I found it inside his old rosary case.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You were barely eating. You were sleeping in his coat.”
Her eyes filled.
“I didn’t know what it meant.”
She disappeared into the bedroom and returned with a small wooden box.
Inside was a black rosary.
Beneath it lay a photograph.
Serafina picked it up.
Her father stood outside a seaside hotel.
Twenty years younger.
Beside him was Serafina’s mother.
And beside Elena—
Vittorio Moretti.
Healthy.
Handsome.
His arm around Elena’s waist.
On her wrist was a gold bracelet engraved with a tiny Moretti crest.
Serafina’s stomach dropped.
She turned the picture over.
Her father’s handwriting covered the back.
Elena chose me.
Vittorio chose silence.
If Serafina ever learns why, tell her I never loved her as anything less than my daughter.
Serafina read it twice.
Then a third time.
Silas went completely still.
Clara whispered, “What does that mean?”
Serafina looked at the photograph.
At Vittorio’s hand around her mother.
At the watch he had apparently given Gabriel.
At the initials S.M. inside a forty-million-euro account.
Then Silas said the words neither sister was ready to hear.
“I think the money was never Alessandro Moretti’s.”
May you like
His eyes settled on Serafina.
“I think it was yours.”
