Chapter 9 – THE SCRATCH AND THE BASEMENT KEY

I couldn’t take my eyes off Arthur’s wrist.

The old man noticed my stare. He quickly pulled his cuff down, his warm smile faltering for just a second.

“A stray branch in the hospital courtyard,” Arthur said smoothly, though I hadn’t asked.

Matteo didn’t hear him. He was busy cutting Mia’s spaghetti.

After dinner, I helped settle my mother into one of the guest suites. She was exhausted but safe. I walked down the grand hallway, my new role as executive manager feeling surreal.

But my mind kept returning to that scratch.

Arthur was eighty-one. He had suffered a heart attack two days ago. He shouldn’t be wandering near bushes.

I went to the kitchen to grab a glass of water. The staff had gone home.

As I passed the laundry room, I noticed Arthur’s tweed jacket hanging over a chair. The same jacket he wore home from the hospital.

I knew I shouldn’t look. The family was safe. Richard was gone.

But I had survived my whole life by noticing details.

I checked the pockets. Inside, I found a heavy brass key I had never seen before. It didn’t belong to the house doors, the wine cellar, or the cars.

It was an antique skeleton key, speckled with fresh, damp earth.

“Looking for something, Emma?”

I jumped. Arthur stood in the doorway. He looked tired, leaning heavily on his cane.

“I was just hanging it up,” I lied, my heart racing.

Arthur held out his hand. “The key, please.”

I handed it to him. “Arthur, where is Celeste?”

His eyes hardened. The gentle steward vanished.

“Some weeds have to be pulled out by the roots, Emma. For the garden to survive.”

“What did you do?” I whispered.

“I protected my family,” Arthur said. “Matteo is too noble to do what needed to be done. Richard is gone, yes. But Celeste? She would have come back. She would have poisoned Mia’s life just like she tried to poison Matteo’s.”

He stepped closer to me.

“You are a smart girl. You have a new life now. A good job. A safe mother. Don’t throw it away over a woman who treated you like dirt.”

He turned and walked away.

I stood frozen. I hated Celeste. But Arthur had a heart condition. He couldn’t have handled her alone.

Who helped him?

I walked to the security room. Luca was on break. I rewound the cameras from the night of the dinner, skipping to the moment Celeste and Richard were thrown out.

I watched Richard get shoved into a car.

But Celeste had run into the gardens, crying.

I switched to the garden camera.

A figure stepped out of the shadows and grabbed her. A man in a dark hoodie. He dragged her toward the old greenhouse.

The man looked up, his face catching the moonlight.

It was Leo Moretti. The exiled brother.

He wasn’t running. He was here.

And before the screen went black, I saw Arthur open the greenhouse door for him.

Share