Chapter 3 - The Vintage Gold Watch
I stared at the name on the eviction list until the letters blurred into meaningless shapes.
Sarah Carter. Unit 4B.
My mother didn't live at Harbor House. She lived in a cramped, two-bedroom apartment across town, struggling with chronic respiratory failure. I paid her rent. I bought her oxygen tanks. I managed her life because she was too sick to do it herself.
Why was her name on Victor Bellini’s eviction list?
"Emily?"
I jumped, crumpling the paper into my apron pocket. Michael was standing over me, holding a dustpan and a broom. He had bypassed the remaining kitchen staff to help me clean up the shattered glass himself.
"Are you hurt?" Michael asked, his dark eyes scanning my face. The slap mark on my cheek had faded into a dull, throbbing ache, but it was the terror in my chest that was making me shake.
"I'm fine, Mr. Michael," I lied, quickly sweeping the shards of crystal.
"You saved my life tonight," he said quietly, crouching beside me. The room had emptied of guests. Luca was in the hallway, barking orders into a phone, rallying his legal team to stop the 8:00 AM bulldozers. "If I had taken one sip of that glass... I would have lost everything. The trust, Harbor House, my brother's respect."
He reached out and gently took the broom from my trembling hands.
"Why are you shaking, Emily?" he asked softly.
I wanted to tell him. I wanted to show him the paper. But Victor Bellini’s parting threat echoed in my mind. If my mother was somehow entangled in the Bellini debts, speaking up might put a target directly on her back.
"It's just the adrenaline," I whispered, standing up quickly. "I should go home. My mother is waiting for her medication."
I practically ran to the staff locker room. I stripped off my uniform, throwing on my faded jeans and heavy winter coat. As I grabbed my purse, my phone buzzed.
It was my mother’s neighbor, Mrs. Higgins.
Emily, please come quickly. There are men here. They’re taking your mother’s things.
Panic, cold and sharp, pierced my chest.
I sprinted out the back door of the Moretti mansion, not waiting for Luca’s security team. I flagged down a taxi on the main avenue, shoving a twenty-dollar bill at the driver. "West 43rd Street. Please, hurry."
The drive took fifteen minutes, but it felt like hours. When the taxi pulled up to my mother’s apartment building, a large, unmarked moving truck was parked on the curb.
I burst through the front doors and took the stairs two at a time.
The door to apartment 4B was wide open.
Inside, two large men in dark jackets were packing my mother’s medical equipment into boxes. My mother, frail and tethered to her portable oxygen tank, was sitting in her worn armchair, weeping silently.
"Hey!" I screamed, lunging into the room. "What are you doing? Put that down!"
One of the men turned. He was the same security guard who had stood behind Victor Bellini at the dinner.
"Emily Carter," the man said, a cruel smirk playing on his lips. "Mr. Bellini said you might show up."
"You have no right to be here!" I yelled, placing myself between the man and my mother. "I paid the rent on the first of the month!"
"You paid the rent to the holding company," the man corrected, pulling a folded legal document from his jacket. "A holding company owned by Victor Bellini. And unfortunately, due to an old debt, this property has been seized as collateral."
"What debt?" I demanded. "We don't owe him anything!"
The man reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, velvet pouch. He tossed it onto the coffee table. The pouch tipped over, spilling a vintage, gold pocket watch onto the scratched wood.
I froze.
I recognized that watch. It had a deep scratch across the glass face and the initials D.C. engraved on the back. David Carter.
It was my father's watch. The one he had sold ten years ago to pay for his final stint in rehab before he died.
"Your father didn't just have a drinking problem, Emily," the man said smoothly. "He had a gambling problem. And he borrowed fifty thousand dollars from Victor Bellini to cover his losses. He put this apartment up as collateral."
The room spun. My father had been sober for six years before his heart gave out. He was a good man who had fought his demons and won. He would never have risked our home.
"That's a lie," I whispered.
"The signature is on the contract," the man sneered. "Mr. Bellini was willing to overlook it as long as the Harbor House deal went through. But since you decided to play hero tonight... the debt is being called in. You have until morning to vacate."
They picked up a box of my mother’s belongings and walked out the door, laughing quietly.
I dropped to my knees beside my mother’s chair, burying my face in her lap as she stroked my hair with trembling fingers.
Everything was gone. Because I knocked a glass out of Michael Moretti’s hand, my mother was going to be homeless.
I picked up the vintage gold watch from the table. It was heavy, cold, and felt like a betrayal. But as my thumb traced the engraved initials on the back, I noticed something strange.
The back casing was slightly loose.
I wedged my fingernail into the groove and popped the gold backing off.
Inside the watch, folded into a tiny square, was a piece of parchment paper.
I unfolded it carefully. It wasn't a gambling ledger. It was a handwritten receipt, dated ten years ago.
Received: $50,000 for services rendered. Signed: Victor Bellini.
My father didn't borrow money from Victor Bellini.
My father was paid by him.
But for what?
Before I could process the discovery, a heavy knock echoed from the open apartment doorway.
I looked up, expecting the men to have returned.
Instead, Luca Moretti stood in the hallway. He was no longer wearing his tuxedo jacket. He wore a dark wool overcoat, his presence instantly filling the small, cramped apartment with an undeniable, terrifying authority.
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And standing right behind him was Michael.
"Pack your mother’s things, Emily," Luca said quietly, his dark eyes sweeping over the half-empty room. "You aren't staying here tonight."
