Chapter 1 – THE EXCAVATORS IN THE GLASS HOUSE

The silence in the dining room was absolute.

Luca didn’t look at his guests. He didn’t look at Vanessa.

He stared at the old gardener.

“What child?” Luca asked, his voice dropping into a dangerous, lethal whisper.

Antonio’s rough hands trembled. “Ten years ago, Mr. Luca. When Clara died in the accident, the doctors told you the baby was lost. They gave you a closed casket for your wife and an empty urn for your child.”

Luca’s face went completely pale.

“Your mother didn’t believe them,” Antonio wept. “She paid a private investigator. She found out the baby survived. She planted those twenty-three white roses to mark the day she found the proof.”

“That’s a lie!” Vanessa screamed, her emerald gown suddenly looking like armor she was desperate to keep on. “He’s senile! Luca, call security and have him thrown out!”

Luca didn’t blink. He looked at his watch.

It was 8:52 PM.

“The contractors are coming at nine,” I whispered, the realization hitting me like a physical blow. “Mr. Moretti, Vanessa didn’t want a marble terrace. She wanted to destroy whatever your mother buried under those roses before the wedding.”

Luca’s eyes turned black with absolute fury.

He didn’t say a word. He turned and sprinted out of the dining room.

I hiked up my uniform skirt and ran after him, with Antonio right behind me.

We burst through the French doors and into the freezing Chicago night. The massive glass greenhouse stood at the edge of the property.

And idling in front of it were two heavy yellow excavators.

They were already moving forward. The steel bucket of the first machine smashed through the pristine glass walls, shattering twenty years of history in a single, deafening crash.

“Stop!” Luca roared.

The operators couldn’t hear him over the diesel engines. The tracks ripped through the soil, heading straight for the bed of twenty-three white roses.

Luca didn’t hesitate. He pulled a heavy Glock from his shoulder holster, aimed at the sky, and fired two deafening shots.

The crack of gunfire echoed across the estate.

The excavators slammed on their brakes. The operators threw their hands in the air, terrified.

“Get out of those machines and get off my property,” Luca ordered, his gun still raised.

The men scrambled away into the darkness.

Luca dropped his weapon and ran into the ruined greenhouse, dropping to his knees in the dirt. Antonio and I fell beside him, digging through the soil with our bare hands beneath the crushed stems of the white roses.

My fingers hit cold, hard metal.

“Here!” I gasped.

Luca hauled a heavy, rusted iron lockbox out of the dirt. He smashed the padlock with the butt of his gun and threw the lid open.

Inside was a delicate silver baby rattle.

And beneath it was a stack of photographs.

Luca picked up the top photo. His hands were shaking so violently he could barely hold it.

It was a picture of a little boy, maybe nine or ten years old. He had dark hair. A stubborn jaw.

And Luca’s exact, piercing dark eyes.

“My son,” Luca choked out, a tear sliding down his face. “He’s alive.”

I looked over his shoulder. I saw the back of the photograph.

“Answer One, Open Two,” my grandmother used to say. Every uncovered secret breeds two more.

“Mr. Moretti,” I whispered, pointing to the faded ink on the back of the photo. “Look at the handwriting.”

Luca flipped it over.

Written in perfect, looping cursive were five words.

He belongs to us now.

And beneath it, a signature.

Marcus Bellini.

Vanessa’s father.

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