Chapter 3 - The Trap Beneath The Rose Garden
Elena’s confession fell like a thunderbolt inside the quiet kitchen. My mother, Isabella Duca, had been a brilliant matriarch who ruled Chicago’s high society while my father ran the streets with iron and lead. Before cancer took her four years ago, she had warned me that wolves dressed in silk would circle our empire the moment she closed her eyes.
“What was in that box, Elena?” I asked, my voice low and dangerous.
“Your mother’s private journal,” Elena answered, clutching her apron tightly. “And the original recordings of the boardroom meeting where Vivien’s father and Julian Vance planned the hit on your father’s convoy six years ago.”
My entire world tilted on its axis. Six years ago, my father’s motorcade had been ambushed on Interstate 90. We had traced the hitmen to a rival gang and eliminated them without mercy. But we had never found the architect. The man who leaked the motorcade’s encrypted route.
Vivien’s family hadn’t just arrived to steal my fortune; they had slaughtered my father, and now Vivien was sleeping under my roof, preparing to marry me to ensure the truth remained buried forever.
“Where is the key, Elena?”
Elena leaned in closer, her voice trembling. “Inside the stone angel by your mother’s memorial rose garden. In the hollow base beneath the left wing. Marco hid it there the night before his accident.”
I set Mia gently back onto her stool and handed her a fresh piece of bread. “Elena, take Mia to the safe room behind the study. Rocco has stocked it with food, toys, and blankets. You stay there until I come for you. Nobody touches you or your daughter again. Do you understand me?”
Elena nodded frantically, fresh tears of relief spilling over her lashes. “Thank you, Lorenzo. God bless you.”
Ten minutes later, I walked alone through the misty morning air toward the western corner of the estate. The rose garden was damp with dew, the fragrance of white petals heavy in the cold autumn breeze. The marble statue of the weeping angel stood silently beside my mother’s gravestone.
I knelt at the base of the statue, running my fingers along the weathered stone. Sure enough, beneath the carved feathers of the left wing, a concealed panel gave way with a faint click.
Inside lay a heavy bronze key wrapped in oilcloth, accompanied by an encrypted USB drive sealed in plastic.
As I closed my fist around the drive, a pair of designer leather boots crunched softly against the gravel path behind me.
“Up early, darling?”
I slowly rose to my feet, tucking the drive into my jacket pocket, and turned around.
Vivien stood thirty feet away, wrapped in an expensive white cashmere coat, holding a pair of garden shears in her gloved hands. Her hair was styled to perfection, her lipstick a sharp, blood-red slash against her pale porcelain skin. But behind her delicate smile, her eyes were cold, scanning the empty hollow at the base of the stone angel.
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“Just paying my respects to my mother,” I said casually, taking a step toward her. “What brings you to the garden before breakfast, Vivien?”
She tilted her head, her smile thinning into something sharp and predatory. “I was hoping to pick some fresh roses for our breakfast table, Lorenzo. But it looks like you’ve already harvested everything worth finding.”
