Chapter 4 - THE SECRET BENEATH THE ROSES|
The next morning, Luca ordered every room in the mansion searched.
Not by his men.
By investigators working with Detective Ellis and attorney Grace Park.
He wanted the truth preserved properly, even if that meant surrendering secrets his family had protected for decades.
I watched him stand beside the grand staircase while strangers examined the house he'd inherited.
He looked exhausted.
But he didn't interfere.
Only one room remained untouched.
Rosa Moretti's greenhouse.
It stood behind the mansion, connected to the east garden by a stone walkway.
Nobody had changed anything inside since her death.
Frank had insisted on keeping it exactly as she left it.
Luca asked me to accompany him there.
"She used to spend every morning with her roses," he said as we crossed the garden.
"Even when she was angry with my father, she could never stay angry at the flowers."
I smiled faintly.
"She sounds wonderful."
"She was."
His expression darkened.
"And I wasn't there when she needed me."
I didn't know how to answer.
I'd seen Luca threaten powerful men without hesitation.
But grief had reduced him to a son who wanted one more conversation with his mother.
Inside, the greenhouse smelled of damp earth and old cedar shelves.
Rows of terracotta pots stood beneath dusty glass panels.
White roses climbed along the far wall.
A small wooden chair sat beside an antique watering can.
Luca touched the chair.
"She used to make me sit here whenever I got into trouble."
"What kind of trouble?"
He gave a humorless laugh.
"Usually the kind that involved my father's business."
For a moment, his expression softened.
"She said being feared wasn't the same thing as being respected."
I glanced at him.
"She sounds like someone worth listening to."
"She was."
He looked at the chair again.
"I just didn't listen enough."
We began examining the greenhouse with photographs and instructions from Detective Ellis, who had authorized us to identify anything Rosa might have hidden without disturbing potential evidence.
Frank had remembered something during the night.
Rosa used to joke that if she ever needed to hide something from him, she'd put it somewhere he never bothered looking.
"Under the roses," Frank had whispered.
At first, I assumed he meant beneath the flowerbeds.
But Rosa had dozens of rose plants.
And the greenhouse hadn't been maintained properly for years.
As we searched, Rex wandered between the tables.
He sniffed the pots and occasionally sneezed at the accumulated dust.
Then he stopped beside a tall wooden cabinet.
His ears lifted.
"Rex?"
He pressed his nose against the cabinet's bottom drawer.
Luca smiled sadly.
"Even now, you want to help."
I knelt and opened the drawer.
Inside were gardening gloves, packets of seeds, and a faded photograph.
The photograph showed Rosa holding a bouquet of white roses beside Frank.
On the back, someone had written a message.
The truth grows where the winter cannot reach.
I read it aloud.
Luca frowned.
"That's something Mom used to say."
"Did she have a favorite rose?"
"White ones."
"Especially the ones my father gave her on their wedding anniversary."
I looked toward the far wall.
Unlike the other rosebushes, one large white rose plant grew in a deep ceramic container beneath a heated window.
Its soil looked unusually raised around the edge.
I pointed.
"That plant?"
Luca nodded.
"She called it her winter rose."
I hurried toward it.
The container was heavy, and I didn't want to disturb anything unnecessarily.
When I noticed a narrow metal compartment built into the wooden stand beneath it, I called Luca over.
He crouched beside me.
A small brass latch held the compartment closed.
Inside was a tin box wrapped in waterproof fabric.
Luca stared at it.
"That's one of Mom's old sewing tins."
We immediately contacted Detective Ellis.
She arrived with Ruiz, photographed the hiding place, and carefully removed the tin.
Inside were three things.
A small electronic storage drive.
A handwritten ledger.
And a letter addressed to Luca.
Grace Park examined the letter before giving him permission to read it.
His hands trembled as he unfolded the paper.
"My darling Luca," he began softly.
"If you are reading this, then I was not able to explain everything myself."
He stopped.
I watched his eyes fill with tears.
After several seconds, he continued.
"I know you think strength means protecting our family from every enemy."
"But sometimes the enemy is a choice we make because admitting our mistakes would cost us too much."
"Your father has been afraid of the truth for many years."
"I have been afraid that his silence will destroy you."
Luca's voice broke.
He stared at the page.
Then he handed it to me.
"Please finish."
I took the letter.
"Victor Bellini believes that money can buy every person and every promise."
"He has spent years trying to gain control of the properties your grandfather intended to protect."
"Those buildings are not simply investments."
"They are homes."
"And the people living inside them deserve better than the world your father and Victor helped create."
I looked up.
Luca's face had gone pale.
The letter continued.
"I have gathered evidence of what Victor has done."
"But I fear he has discovered that I intend to take it to the authorities."
"If anything happens to me, do not let anger decide what happens next."
"Find the truth."
"Protect the innocent."
"And remember that your mother loved you more than any empire."
By the time I reached the signature, I was crying.
Luca turned away.
For several minutes, nobody spoke.
Finally, Detective Ellis opened the ledger.
Most pages contained handwritten numbers, building addresses, and unfamiliar company names.
But one entry stood out.
A payment of $750,000 had been made through a charitable foundation connected to Victor Bellini.
The recipient was a consulting company registered to Adrian Vale.
The date was two days after Rosa Moretti died.
Luca stared at the figure.
"Seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars?"
Grace Park nodded.
"We need to establish what the payment was actually for."
Detective Ellis carefully sealed the ledger.
"We'll trace it."
Then her phone rang.
She stepped outside to answer.
When she returned, her expression had changed.
"Mr. Moretti, we have the preliminary security report from your property."
Luca stood.
"Did you find Henry?"
"Not yet."
"But we recovered a partial recording from the basement hallway."
I felt my heart begin pounding.
Ellis turned her tablet toward us.
The video showed Vanessa standing outside the basement door that morning.
Beside her was a man carrying a black leather briefcase.
He turned toward the camera for less than a second.
Luca leaned closer.
It was Dr. Adrian Vale.
The same physician who had pronounced Rosa dead three years earlier.
And in the recording, Vanessa held up a document while Vale spoke to someone through his phone.
The audio was distorted.
May you like
Only one sentence could be understood.
"If Frank won't sign, we'll have to handle him the same way we handled Rosa."
