Chapter 4 – THE COURIER’S WATCH AND THE GREENHOUSE SECRET

The silver watch felt like burning coal in my palms.

“No,” I whispered, stepping back. I looked at the cracked glass, at the familiar engraving I had traced with my fingers a thousand times as a child. “No, my father is a good man. He’s a retired mechanic. He doesn’t know anything about poisons or the Rossi family.”

“Is that what he told you?” Vanessa mocked, her voice echoing down the third-floor hallway. “David Collins, the sweet, deaf mechanic. He’s been running discreet packages for the South Side syndicate for a decade, Emily. They use him because nobody suspects the deaf guy. He delivered the toxin to me. He knew exactly what it was.”

The world tilted on its axis.

I looked at Luca. The mafia boss was staring at me, his eyes hardened with a terrifying, calculated suspicion. Just ten minutes ago, I was the brave maid defending his sister. Now, I was the daughter of the man who helped poison her.

“Emily,” Luca said, his voice dangerously low. “Is she telling the truth?”

“I… I don’t know,” I stammered, tears blurring my vision. “I swear to you, Mr. Moretti. My father has never hurt anyone in his life.”

Vanessa laughed. “He did it for the money, Emily. How do you think he paid for your mother’s cancer treatments five years ago?”

My heart stopped. Five years ago. The exact same time Audrey got sick, my mother was in the hospital. My father had suddenly come up with thirty thousand dollars in cash for an experimental treatment. He told me it was a loan from an old friend.

A sob tore from my throat.

Suddenly, a warm hand grabbed my wrist.

I looked down. Audrey was standing beside me. She wasn’t looking at Vanessa, and she wasn’t looking at her brother. She was looking directly into my eyes.

She signed, her movements slow, deliberate, and fiercely protective.

Your father is a good man. He didn’t know.

I sobbed, signing back. How do you know?

Audrey turned to her brother. She signed rapidly.

I translated, my voice shaking. “Audrey says… she says she met my father. Five years ago. He delivered a package to the back gate. She was in the garden.”

Luca frowned deeply. “Audrey, you never told me that.”

“She says he tried to take the package back,” I continued, reading Audrey’s flying hands. “He saw Vanessa open it. He saw the chemical warning labels. Audrey says my father tried to grab the box back, but Vanessa’s men beat him. That’s how his watch was broken. They took it as a threat. They told him if he ever spoke, they would kill his wife.”

Luca’s expression shifted instantly from suspicion to a cold, understanding fury. He looked at the cracked watch in my hands. It wasn’t proof of my father’s guilt. It was proof of his subjugation.

Vanessa’s smirk faltered. “She’s lying! She’s trying to protect the maid!”

“My sister does not lie,” Luca said softly.

He turned to Marco, who was still standing at the end of the hall with his men.

“Marco,” Luca ordered. “Take Vanessa to the basement holding room. Strip her of her phone. She makes no calls. If the Rossi family wants this house, they can come through me to get it.”

“You can’t do this!” Vanessa screamed as the two massive men grabbed her by the arms. “I own you, Luca! I own this estate!”

“Take her,” Luca commanded.

As they dragged a kicking, screaming Vanessa down the hall, Audrey tugged on my sleeve again.

She looked pale, but determined. She signed one word.

Greenhouse.

I looked at her, confused. “The greenhouse? What about it, Audrey?”

She signed quickly. Last night. After she stole the key. Vanessa didn’t go back to her room. I followed her. She went to the greenhouse. She buried something in the dirt.

I looked at Luca. “Mr. Moretti. Audrey says Vanessa hid something in the greenhouse last night.”

Luca didn’t waste a second. “Show me.”

The three of us hurried down the stairs, through the massive kitchen, and out the back doors into the sprawling, manicured gardens. The night air was biting, but the glass greenhouse at the edge of the property was humid and warm, smelling of damp earth and blooming orchids.

Audrey led us down the center aisle, past rows of exotic ferns. She stopped at the very back corner, near a large, ancient oak planter.

She pointed to the soil. It had been freshly disturbed.

Luca grabbed a small hand trowel from a nearby workbench. He dropped to his knees and began digging.

Less than a foot down, the metal blade struck something hard.

Luca pushed the dirt aside and pulled out a small, waterproof steel lockbox. It was heavy, sealed with a combination dial.

“Stand back,” Luca ordered.

He stood up, placed the box on the concrete floor, and brought the heavy heel of his leather boot down on the lock with shattering force.

The metal groaned. On the third stomp, the latch snapped off.

Luca knelt and flipped the lid open.

Inside were stacks of banded cash, a passport with Vanessa’s photo under a false name, and a thick envelope.

Luca opened the envelope.

He pulled out a single, glossy photograph.

I leaned in to look.

It was a picture of Vanessa, taken a few years ago. She was sitting on a park bench, smiling genuinely—a smile I had never seen on her face in the mansion.

Sitting on her lap was a little boy, maybe four or five years old. He was holding a blue stuffed elephant.

But it was the boy’s face that made the breath completely leave my lungs.

He had dark, swept-back hair, a strong jawline, and piercing, unmistakable dark eyes.

He had Luca’s eyes.

I gasped, covering my mouth. “Mr. Moretti… is that…?”

Luca stared at the photograph, his hands trembling so violently he nearly dropped it.

“He has the Moretti eyes,” Luca whispered, the shock rendering him completely immobile.

But Audrey was looking over his shoulder. She didn’t gasp. She didn’t cry. She reached out and snatched the photograph from her brother’s hand.

She looked at the little boy. Then, she looked at Luca, and she signed a sentence that completely shattered the reality of the Moretti family.

That isn’t your son, Luca.

She tapped the boy’s wrist in the photograph.

Look at the birthmark.

I leaned in. On the inside of the boy’s wrist was a small, crescent-moon-shaped birthmark.

Audrey signed slowly, tears finally falling down her cheeks.

That is Matteo’s son.