He Wore the Watch of a Dead Hero
CHAPTER 1 — The Watch Between Two Brothers
Adrian Whitmore noticed the boy because he did not belong in the ballroom.
The child was thin, dirty, and bleeding from one knee. Wealthy guests moved away from him as if poverty were contagious.
But the boy ignored them.
He stared at Adrian's wrist.
"Your watch... it's just like my dad's."
Adrian's body went still.
The steel watch had been a gift from his mother. She had bought two identical ones for her sons.
One for Adrian.
One for his older brother, Scott.
"What is your dad's name?"
"Scott."
The name struck Adrian like a physical blow.
Eight years earlier, Scott had pulled Adrian from a burning car after its brakes failed on a mountain road. Scott went back to rescue the driver just before the vehicle exploded.
No body was recovered.
Adrian had worn his brother's matching watch every day since the funeral.
He unclasped it with trembling fingers and offered it to the boy.
"Take it. Your dad saved my life."
The boy's name was Leo.
He suddenly hugged Adrian.
Then he whispered into his ear.
"My father said to ask if you still keep your promise."
Adrian remembered the hospital before the accident.
Scott's wife, Anna, was pregnant. Scott had made Adrian promise that if anything happened, he would protect Anna and the baby.
After Scott's death, Adrian tried to find them.
His stepfather, Charles Whitmore, told him Anna had taken a settlement and disappeared overseas.
Adrian had believed him.
Leo pulled away.
"He is alive."
"Where?"
"At Saint Matthew's Rehabilitation Home. But men came for him this morning. Dad made me climb out a window."
Adrian looked at Leo's scraped face.
The child had crossed nearly six miles alone to reach the gala.
"Who were the men?"
Leo pointed past Adrian.
At the opposite end of the ballroom stood Charles, smiling beside Adrian's sixty-year-old mother, Eleanor.
The boy's voice dropped.
"The one with your mother."
Charles saw Leo.
His smile vanished.
He immediately reached for his phone.
Adrian took Leo's hand.
Then the boy revealed why Scott had sent him that night.
"Dad said Charles tried to kill you, and now he's coming back to finish it."
