Chapter 3 - THE GOLD POCKET WATCH
The townhouse was dead silent.
It was 2:00 AM.
Adrian hadn’t let me leave.
Instead, he had Evan move my belongings into the guest suite on the third floor—a room larger than my entire apartment.
“You don’t leave this house,” Adrian had told me, his tone leaving no room for argument. “Not until I know exactly what Camille is doing.”
I sat on the edge of the velvet bed, staring at my phone.
I couldn’t sleep.
The bruise on my neck throbbed in time with my heartbeat.
I kept thinking about the stranger. Marcus.
If Marcus Romano was alive, why was he sneaking around his own brother’s house?
Why give me the drawing?
A soft knock pulled me from my thoughts.
The door opened slightly.
Adrian stood there. He had taken off his jacket and tie. The top three buttons of his shirt were undone, making him look less like a billionaire CEO and more like a man pushed to the edge.
In his hand, he held a small ice pack wrapped in a silk towel.
“May I?” he asked.
I swallowed hard and nodded.
He sat on the edge of the bed next to me.
The mattress dipped under his weight.
He smelled like expensive scotch and cedarwood.
Gently, he pressed the cold compress against the side of my neck.
I flinched.
“Sorry,” he murmured, his thumb brushing my jawline.
His touch was remarkably gentle for a man with a reputation for ruthlessness.
“You shouldn’t be doing this,” I whispered. “I’m staff.”
“You ceased being staff the moment someone bled in my house because of my family,” he replied, his eyes locked on mine.
“I didn’t bleed.”
“Your spirit did.”
I looked away, my cheeks heating up.
“I sent Evan to St. Vincent’s,” Adrian continued, his voice dropping lower. “Your mother is secure. He moved two guards into the hallway outside her room.”
Relief washed over me. “Thank you.”
Adrian sighed, resting his free hand on his knee.
“I traced the stationary. St. Jude’s closed six years ago after a fire in the west wing. All patients were transferred. But there was a private sublevel.”
“A sublevel?”
“Unregistered patients,” Adrian said bitterly. “People whose families wanted them to disappear. Camille’s father ran it for the Syndicate.”
He looked at the child’s drawing sitting on the nightstand.
“Marcus didn’t fake his death, Hannah. He was taken.”
My breath caught. “For eleven years?”
“Yes.”
“But why did he come here today? Why meet with Camille?”
“Because she has leverage,” Adrian said.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out an object.
He placed it onto the velvet blanket between us.
It was a gold pocket watch.
Heavy, scratched, and antique.
“Evan found this in your mother’s room at St. Vincent’s,” Adrian said quietly.
My heart plummeted.
“What? No, my mother doesn’t own anything like that. She has dementia. She barely keeps track of her own slippers.”
“It wasn’t hers,” Adrian said. “Evan found it tucked inside her pillowcase. Someone planted it there tonight.”
I stared at the watch.
Then, I reached out and touched it.
It was cold.
I pressed the small latch at the top.
The gold cover popped open.
Inside, the glass was cracked. The hands were frozen at exactly 4:16.
The exact minute the security camera in the west corridor had gone offline.
But that wasn’t what made me gasp.
Tucked inside the cover of the watch was a tiny, faded photograph.
A picture of a young woman standing on a wooden dock.
The same dock from the child’s drawing.
The woman was laughing, looking over her shoulder at the camera.
“That’s my mother,” I whispered, my voice shaking. “From thirty years ago.”
Adrian stared at me. “Your mother?”
“Yes.” I looked up at him, panic rising in my chest. “Mr. Romano, my mother never went to Blackwood Lake. She was a seamstress in Queens.”
Adrian took the watch from my hand.
He looked closely at the photograph.
Then, he slowly turned it over.
Written on the back, in the same jagged black ink as the drawing, was one sentence.
Ask her what she saw.
Suddenly, Adrian’s phone buzzed violently in his pocket.
He answered it, putting it on speaker.
“Sir,” Evan’s voice barked through the phone.
“What is it?”
“We have a problem at St. Vincent’s.”
“I told you to secure Hannah’s mother.”
“We did, sir. But she’s awake. And she’s screaming.”
“Screaming about what?”
Evan hesitated.
“She’s screaming that the devil is coming back for the boy. Over and over. She won’t let anyone near her.”
Adrian looked at me.
I was already standing up.
“I have to go to her,” I said.
“We go together,” Adrian replied, his eyes dark.
We rushed out of the room.
But as we reached the top of the grand staircase, the front doors of the townhouse burst open.
Police officers flooded the foyer.
And standing right behind them, wearing a perfectly pressed designer coat, was Camille.
She pointed a manicured finger straight up the stairs.
May you like
At me.
“That’s her,” Camille told the officers, her voice dripping with fake terror. “That’s the maid who stole my diamond necklace and assaulted me.”
