Chapter 3 - The Pocket WatchThe hidden passage smelled like wet stone, rust, and old secrets.
Marco carried Lorenzo over one shoulder as if the man weighed nothing, though I could see the strain in his jaw. Dr. Ricci followed behind, one hand pressed to his bleeding eyebrow, the other clutching his medical bag. I carried Emma, who had gone frighteningly quiet, her arms locked around my neck.
Biscotti somehow came last, offended by the entire situation.
The stone door sealed behind us just as heavy boots entered the cellar.
Vincent’s men.
I heard them shouting.
Then one of them found Carlo.
Another cursed at the blood.
A third said, “The chair’s empty.”
Vincent’s voice cut through the others.
“Find the passage.”
Marco pushed us forward. “Move.”
The tunnel was narrow enough that my shoulders scraped both sides. The ceiling dipped low, forcing Marco to bend while carrying Lorenzo. Old copper pipes ran along one wall. Dust coated everything. Every few yards, iron brackets held dead electric bulbs that looked older than I was.
I had lived in the Duca estate for seven years and never known this passage existed.
But Lorenzo had.
Even half-conscious, he lifted one shaking hand whenever the tunnel split, directing Marco left, then right, then down a short flight of steps hidden under warped boards.
Finally, we reached a steel door.
Marco kicked the bottom twice, then tapped the handle in a strange rhythm.
Three fast.
One slow.
Two fast.
A lock clicked from the other side.
The door opened.
An older woman stood there holding a shotgun.
Rosa.
The head cook.
She was sixty-two, short, round, and famous among the staff for making grown men apologize if they entered her kitchen with dirty shoes.
She looked at Lorenzo bleeding over Marco’s shoulder.
Then at me.
Then at Emma.
Her face hardened.
“I told him Vincent was a snake,” she said.
Marco stepped inside. “You tell everyone that.”
“And I am usually right.”
The room beyond the door was not a kitchen, cellar, or storage space.
It was an old underground infirmary.
White cabinets lined the walls. A hospital bed stood in the center. There were oxygen tanks, locked drawers, emergency lights, surgical lamps, and two monitors covered in plastic sheets. A hidden medical room beneath a mansion owned by criminals.
Of course there was.
Marco laid Lorenzo on the bed.
Dr. Ricci was already moving. He snapped on gloves, cut Lorenzo’s shirt open, and began issuing orders.
“Rosa, light. Sophia, towels. Marco, pressure here. No, higher. He has lost too much blood.”
I moved before thinking.
For the next fifteen minutes, I was not afraid because there was no room to be afraid. I handed gauze. I held clamps. I tore open packages. I kept Emma seated on an old leather chair with Biscotti in her lap and told her to sing under her breath so she would not listen to Lorenzo groan.
She sang the alphabet song.
Over and over.
Softly.
Wrong in the middle every time.
Nobody corrected her.
At one point Lorenzo’s hand shot out and grabbed my wrist. His grip was cold.
“Watch,” he rasped.
“It’s here.”
His eyes would not release mine.
“Open it.”
Ricci snapped, “He needs to stay still.”
Lorenzo ignored him.
Marco looked at me. “Give it to me.”
I handed him the broken pocket watch.
He turned it over, frowned at the dented back, then took a thin blade from his boot. With careful pressure, he pried at the hidden seam.
Nothing.
He tried again.
The metal clicked.
The back compartment opened.
Inside was not paper.
Not jewels.
Not a photograph.
A tiny black memory card slid into Marco’s palm.
No bigger than my fingernail.
Rosa crossed herself.
Ricci stopped moving for half a second.
Lorenzo exhaled like a man who had been holding his breath for years.
“What is it?” I asked.
Marco did not answer.
Lorenzo did.
“Insurance.”
His voice was weak, but the word turned the room colder.
Ricci returned to the wound. “Insurance that nearly got you killed.”
Lorenzo’s mouth twisted. “It kept me alive long enough.”
Marco held the card up. “Does Vincent know this exists?”
“He knows something exists.” Lorenzo swallowed hard. “Not what.”
“Then he’ll tear the house apart.”
“He already is.”
As if summoned by the words, the ceiling above us thudded.
Once.
Twice.
A distant crash followed.
They were searching.
Room by room.
Marco slipped the memory card into a small metal case from his pocket. “Where do I take it?”
Lorenzo’s eyes shifted.
To me.
“No,” I said immediately.
Everyone looked at me.
I backed away. “No. Whatever this is, no. I have Emma.”
Lorenzo’s gaze softened for the smallest second.
Then hardened again.
“That is why.”
My throat closed.
Marco shook his head. “She is not trained.”
“No one watches servants,” Lorenzo said.
I laughed then, once, sharp and ugly. “That is not true. Men like Vincent watch everyone they think they own.”
Lorenzo held my stare.
“You saw him in my chair.”
The room went silent.
I had not told him that.
My stomach tightened. “How did you know?”
“He told me.” Lorenzo’s breathing hitched as Ricci pressed gauze harder to his chest. “While I was tied there. He wanted me to understand. He said the house already looked right with him in my chair.”
The memory of Vincent smiling at the empty room moved through me like ice.
“He planned this for a long time,” Marco said.
“Years,” Lorenzo rasped.
Rosa muttered something in Italian under her breath that sounded like a curse and a prayer fighting.
Ricci’s face was grim. “The bullet passed through soft tissue, but the knife wound is worse. He needs blood.”
Marco stepped forward. “Use mine.”
“You don’t know if you match.”
“I do.”
Ricci looked up.
Marco’s jaw tightened. “I know.”
Something passed between the men. An old secret. Another door in a house full of doors.
Ricci nodded once. “Sit.”
As Ricci prepared the transfusion, Lorenzo’s eyes drifted to Emma.
She had stopped singing.
Now she was watching him over Biscotti’s ears.
“Come here, little one,” Lorenzo whispered.
I started to say no.
Emma slid down from the chair before I could stop her.
She walked to the bed slowly, clutching the cat. “Uncle Lorenzo?”
His face changed when he looked at her. Not softness exactly. Lorenzo Duca did not know how to be soft. But something near it. Something wounded.
“You broke your scissors,” he said.
Her chin trembled. “They didn’t work.”
“They worked.”
She shook her head. “You still stuck.”
“I am not stuck now.”
Emma considered this.
Then she lifted one small hand and placed it carefully on the edge of the bed, not touching his wound, as if she remembered blood was dangerous.
“Emma tried hard.”
Lorenzo closed his eyes briefly.
When he opened them, they were wet.
I looked away because seeing tears in Lorenzo Duca’s eyes felt more private than seeing him bleeding.
“Yes,” he said. “You did.”
Emma leaned closer and whispered, “Mr. Vincent bad?”
Every adult in the room froze.
Children had a terrible way of dragging truth into the open.
Lorenzo’s voice dropped. “Yes.”
Emma nodded solemnly, as if this confirmed what she already knew.
“He said you went away.”
My head snapped toward her.
“When?” I asked.
Emma looked at me. “When Biscotti ran in the pantry. Mr. Vincent was talking to the tall man. He said Uncle Lorenzo went away and everybody has to listen now.”
Marco slowly turned.
“What tall man?”
Emma frowned with effort. “The one with no smile.”
Rosa whispered, “That is half the men in this house.”
Emma shook her head. “No. The tall one from the red car.”
Ricci’s face lost color.
Marco saw it. “Enzo?”
Ricci removed his broken glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“Red car,” he said quietly. “That would be Salvatore Greco.”
Lorenzo’s expression went deadly still.
I knew the name.
Everyone in Chicago knew the name.
Salvatore Greco was not one of Lorenzo’s men.
He was his enemy.
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And if Vincent had let him into the Duca estate, then this was not just betrayal.
It was an invasion.
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