Chapter 4 - [THE LIE BURIED IN THE GARDEN]
I stood paralyzed, staring at the locked door.
Katie whimpered from the couch, pulling the cashmere throw tighter around herself.
“Emma, please don’t let her in,” she begged softly.
“I won’t,” I mouthed back.
Vanessa’s voice slithered under the door again, soft but sharp as a razor.
“You think Luca is protecting you, sweetheart? He’s protecting himself. If he finds out who your father really was, he won’t save you. He’ll destroy you.”
My hand tightened around the crumpled newspaper clipping.
“My father was a good man!” I called out, my voice trembling but loud enough for her to hear.
A low, cruel laugh drifted through the wood.
“Good men don’t run away in the middle of the night while a sixteen-year-old girl drowns. Good men don’t accept hush money to disappear.”
Hush money.
I thought about our small house. The mortgage my mother could barely pay. We never had money. If my father took a bribe, where did it go?
“You’re lying,” I said.
“Am I? Why do you think I wanted you gone, Emma? Because you’re pretty? Please. You’re a liability. If Luca connects the dots… if he realizes Thomas Sullivan’s daughters are serving his dinner… the truce is over.”
Footsteps echoed sharply at the far end of the hall. Heavy, purposeful.
“Vanessa.”
It was Luca.
“Get away from that door,” he commanded.
“Luca, I was just checking on them—”
“Marco,” Luca called out.
A second set of footsteps arrived. “Yes, Boss.”
“Escort my fiancée to the south wing. Pack her bags. She is no longer welcome in the main house.”
“Luca, you can’t do this!” Vanessa shrieked, her composed facade finally shattering. “You need my family! You need the Bellini connection! Without me, the board will tear you apart!”
“I’d rather burn the board to the ground than let you sleep under my roof again,” Luca said. “Take her away.”
I heard a struggle, Vanessa cursing, and then the sound of her being dragged down the corridor.
A moment later, a gentle knock came at the door.
“Emma. It’s me.”
I unlocked the door and pulled it open.
Luca stood there. His tie was loosened, his hair slightly disheveled. He looked exhausted, but his dark eyes immediately scanned the room to make sure Katie and I were safe.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
“No.”
He stepped inside and closed the door. “Richard is gone. I’ve restricted his business accounts and flagged his passport. He won’t come near you again.”
“What about the bracelet?” I asked.
Luca reached into his pocket and pulled out the silver swallows. He stared at it, his thumb tracing the metal.
“Vanessa admitted she found it in a safety deposit box belonging to her father. She didn’t know how her family got it, but she knew it would force Richard to comply.” He looked at me, his eyes filled with a pain he usually kept hidden. “My sister drowned, Emma. We never found her personal effects. If Vanessa’s family had this… it means Clara wasn’t alone on that boat.”
My heart hammered.
I looked down at the desk. The picture frame was still lying face-down.
I had a choice to make.
I could hide the clipping. I could protect my father’s memory, keep my job, and pretend I didn’t know anything.
But I looked at Luca’s face. He was a man who had spent fifteen years grieving a lie.
I knew what it felt like to lose a family member.
I picked up the newspaper clipping and held it out to him.
“Mr. Moretti… I need to show you something.”
He took the paper. He read the circled paragraph.
Then he looked at the photograph of the gardener.
“That’s Thomas,” Luca said softly. “He was our head groundskeeper. He vanished the night she died.”
I swallowed hard, forcing the words out of my throat.
“His name was Thomas Sullivan.”
Luca froze.
He slowly looked up from the paper, his eyes locking onto mine.
“He’s my father,” I whispered.
The silence in the room stretched until it felt like a physical weight.
I waited for the anger. I waited for him to yell, to accuse me of infiltrating his home, to throw me out into the rain.
Instead, Luca took a step closer.
He looked closely at my face, really looking at me.
“You didn’t know,” he realized.
“I swear on my life, I didn’t. He died two years ago. We never knew he worked here.”
Luca rubbed the back of his neck, processing the shock. Then he looked at the desk.
“Wait,” Luca said. “If you didn’t know… who left the clipping inside the frame?”
He reached for the silver picture frame.
He slid his fingers inside the velvet backing where the photo had been.
“There’s something else in here,” he muttered.
He pulled out a small, flat brass key.
Attached to the key was a tiny, faded tag.
Written on the tag, in my father’s unmistakable handwriting, were three words:
St. Jude’s Lockbox.
“St. Jude,” I gasped. “That’s my mother’s church.”
Luca gripped the key. “Get your coats. We’re going to see your mother.”
But before we could move, my cell phone rang in my apron pocket.
I pulled it out. The caller ID said Mom.
I answered it, relief flooding my chest. “Mom? Thank God—”
“Emma?” a voice said.
It wasn’t my mother.
It was a man’s voice. Deep, raspy, and terrifyingly calm.
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“Your mother is making tea,” Richard Vale said through the phone. “She’s a lovely woman. You have twenty minutes to bring me that key, Emma. Or I’m going to break her neck.”
TITLE: THE ROSARY ON THE KITCHEN TABLE
