Chapter 3 - THE ROOM UNDER THE GREENHOUSE
Serena had designed the greenhouse herself.
Alessio gave her architects.
She ignored half their recommendations.
The final structure was narrow and elegant, with iron ribs, old brick flooring, and enough glass to catch sunrise from every direction.
She used to say plants behaved better when they could see the morning coming.
Alessio entered after midnight.
One bodyguard remained outside.
He brought Claudia.
Evelyn stayed upstairs with Ruby.
Claudia stopped near the center aisle.
“I’ve never been inside this part.”
Alessio looked at her.
“Then how do you know?”
“Serena told me there was a door.”
“Where?”
“She didn’t say.”
They searched for twenty minutes.
No hidden panel.
No obvious lock.
Then Alessio noticed the stone worktable.
Serena had carved tiny flower symbols along its edge.
Rose.
Lavender.
Jasmine.
Peony.
One symbol did not belong.
A thorn.
Alessio pressed it.
Nothing.
Claudia stepped closer.
“The key.”
There was no keyhole.
Until Alessio lifted the iron tray sitting above the carving.
Beneath it was a narrow black slot.
The key entered.
A click came from beneath the brick floor.
Claudia stepped backward.
One section of flooring rose half an inch.
Alessio pulled.
Stone opened onto darkness.
A narrow staircase descended beneath the greenhouse.
Claudia whispered, “She never told me this.”
Alessio went first.
At the bottom was a room barely ten feet wide.
No windows.
Concrete walls.
One table.
One chair.
A wooden cabinet.
Serena had been there often.
He knew from the objects.
Her gardening sweater hung from a hook.
A chipped coffee cup sat beside the wall.
A dried sprig of rosemary lay across the table.
Alessio touched the sweater.
Eleven months of grief nearly broke through him.
He stopped it.
Not because he did not feel.
Because tonight grief needed to become attention.
Claudia opened the cabinet.
Inside were six small wooden boxes.
Each had a flower carved into the lid.
No documents.
No money.
No jewelry.
Objects.
A broken pocket watch.
A brass cartridge casing.
A black cufflink.
A child’s marble.
A piece of burned red fabric.
And a silver medallion bearing the Ventresca crest.
Alessio recognized the cufflink.
It belonged to Martin Shaw, one of Gabriel’s oldest soldiers.
Martin disappeared twelve years ago.
The watch had belonged to another man Alessio knew.
Dead.
The cartridge casing carried a tiny thorn scratched into the metal.
Claudia whispered, “Serena was collecting something.”
Alessio opened the last box.
Empty.
Except for a small recorder.
He stared.
Serena hated writing important things down.
She used to say paper waited patiently for the wrong hands.
A recording made sense.
Alessio pressed play.
Static.
Then Serena’s voice.
“Alessio.”
He closed his eyes.
Claudia turned away.
“I know you’ll be angry that I hid this.”
Serena laughed faintly on the recording.
“You’re probably angry already.”
That almost killed him.
Because it was exactly how she spoke.
Warm enough to soften him.
Sharp enough never to fear him.
The recording continued.
“Gabriel is alive.”
Alessio opened his eyes.
“I saw him.”
Claudia looked at him.
Serena’s voice became quieter.
“Not a photograph. Not a story. I saw your brother with my own eyes.”
Alessio gripped the edge of the table.
“He asked me not to tell you yet.”
Anger rose.
Even dead, Serena had anticipated it.
“I know what you’re thinking. Don’t.”
He almost answered the recorder.
“He says the warehouse fire was not an accident. Someone inside the family wanted both brothers gone. Gabriel escaped. He believes whoever started it later decided you were easier to control alive.”
Claudia stopped breathing.
Alessio felt the room narrow.
Serena continued.
“I didn’t believe him. Then he showed me something.”
A pause.
“Something your father hid.”
Alessio’s father had been dead nine years.
The old man had ruled the Ventrescas with discipline and cruelty in equal measure.
Alessio loved him.
Feared him.
Never fully knew him.
“I started looking,” Serena said.
“That was my mistake.”
Her voice changed.
For the first time, fear entered it.
“If you are hearing this, someone found me before I finished.”
Alessio looked toward the remaining boxes.
“Do not trust the obvious enemy.”
Static cracked.
“Gabriel is dangerous. He always was. But I don’t believe Gabriel wanted me dead.”
Claudia whispered, “Oh God.”
The recording continued.
“The man I fear is someone who can walk through this estate without being stopped.”
Alessio’s body went completely still.
“He knows Ruby.”
A long pause.
“He knows where she sleeps.”
Alessio’s hand went beneath his jacket instinctively.
Claudia looked toward the staircase.
Serena’s final words came softly.
“And he knows you still blame yourself for Gabriel.”
The recording ended.
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Then a sound came from upstairs.
Glass breaking.
Alessio ran.
He reached the greenhouse floor in seconds.
The outer door stood open.
The bodyguard who had been posted outside was on one knee, disoriented, blood running from his temple.
“What happened?”
“Someone came through the hedge.”
“Who?”
“I didn’t see.”
Alessio looked toward the estate.
Lights were coming on.
Claudia ran behind him.
Then Alessio saw it.
Pinned to the greenhouse door with a garden knife was one black rose.
Not real.
Made from silk.
Around its stem was a silver thorn.
May you like
Gabriel’s old symbol.
And somewhere beyond the hedge, an engine disappeared into the night.
