Chapter 2 - The Decoy in the Suitcase
The silence in the potting shed was suffocating.
Luca didn’t yell. He didn’t slam his fist into the wooden workbench. In my twelve days working at the Moretti estate, I had learned that Luca Moretti was at his most dangerous when his voice dropped to a near whisper.
“A little girl,” Luca repeated, his dark eyes locked on Thomas.
“She couldn’t have been more than four or five years old,” Thomas said, his hand trembling slightly despite his effort to keep it still. “The photograph was laminated. Old. Taken twenty years ago, maybe more.”
“And you saw Vanessa here at two in the morning?” Luca asked.
“She was right by the back corridor door,” Thomas said. “She had her coat on. She asked me what was in my hands. When I didn’t answer, she walked away. When I came back after rinsing the soot off my arms, the box I hidden under the pots was gone.”
Vanessa suddenly let out a dry, humorless laugh. “This is ridiculous. You’re taking the word of a senile gardener over mine? Luca, look at him! He’s burned, he’s in shock, and he’s probably covering for whatever thief he caught sneaking around our perimeter.”
“Our perimeter?” Luca turned his gaze toward her.
The temperature in the room plummeted.
“Daniel,” Luca spoke into the handheld radio.
“Yes, boss?”
“Bring Marcus to the study. Take his phone, his wallet, and whatever luggage he was carrying. Don’t let him talk to anyone. If he breathes too loud, remind him who pays for his mother’s nursing home.”
“Understood.”
Luca clipped the radio to his belt. He looked at me for the first time since he had stepped into the garden. His eyes were the color of espresso, sharp, analytical, and unsettlingly observant.
“Miss Carter.”
My back straightened instinctively. “Yes, Mr. Moretti?”
“Did you give Thomas the severance check?”
“No, sir.”
“Why not?”
Vanessa stepped in before I could speak. “Because she’s insubordinate, Luca. I gave her a direct order. She works for the household, which means she answers to me.”
“She answers to me,” Luca said, not breaking eye contact with me. “Why didn’t you give it to him, Lily?”
It was the first time he had spoken my first name. It sounded heavy on his tongue.
“Because Mr. Russo was hurt,” I said clearly, keeping my voice steady despite the racing pulse in my throat. “And because a loyal employee of nearly four decades deserves a doctor, not an eviction notice, especially when a fire was deliberately set on your grounds.”
A faint flicker of something—curiosity, perhaps respect—crossed Luca’s face.
“Get the medical kit from the pantry,” Luca commanded softly. “Clean Thomas’s hand. Then both of you come to the main library.”
He turned to Vanessa. His hand closed lightly around her upper arm—polite to an outsider, but unyielding as forged iron.
“Come, darling,” Luca said coldly. “Let’s go welcome Marcus home.”
When they left, the shed seemed to exhale.
I immediately helped Thomas sit on a wooden crate. “Sit down before you fall down, Thomas.”
“I’m fine, lass,” he muttered, but his skin was gray.
“You’re not fine. You’ve got second-degree burns and half the household is playing a game that could get someone killed.” I grabbed a clean cloth from the shelf and soaked it in cool distilled water. “Who was the little girl in that picture, Thomas?”
He stared down at the floor, watching the dirty water drip off his boots.
“Lucia Moretti had secrets, Lily. Dangerous ones. Her husband—Luca’s father, Don Antonio—was a ruthless man. He built this empire with blood and fear. But Lucia... Lucia was different. She had a conscience. And in this family, a conscience is the most lethal thing you can possess.”
“Was the girl her daughter?”
“Lucia only had one child,” Thomas whispered. “Luca.”
“Then who—”
“I don’t know,” Thomas interrupted, his voice thick with gravel. “All I know is that three weeks before Lucia died in that supposed car accident on Route 9, she handed me that box wrapped in oilcloth. She told me, ‘Thomas, if I die, bury this beneath the White Eden climber. Do not let Antonio find it. Do not let the Bellinis find it. Only give it to Luca when he is ready to burn everything to the ground.’”
My heart skipped a beat. “She specifically mentioned the Bellinis?”
“Vanessa’s father was Antonio’s closest partner,” Thomas said darkly. “They made their fortunes together. And now, Vanessa is here, days away from marrying Luca to merge the two dynasties.”
“Unless whatever was in that box ruins the wedding,” I realized aloud.
“Or ruins the Bellinis,” Thomas corrected.
Ten minutes later, with Thomas’s hand cleaned and rebandaged, we walked across the courtyard toward the grand limestone mansion. The Moretti estate was vast, surrounded by towering iron gates, ancient oak trees, and stone walls that felt more like a fortress than a home.
When we entered the grand library on the first floor, the tension in the room was thick enough to choke on.
Marcus, the thirty-year-old security guard, was sitting in a leather wingback chair, his hands handcuffed behind his back. His lip was split, his jacket torn. Standing over him was Daniel, Luca’s head of security, looking stone-faced and immovable.
On the mahogany desk sat a heavy, scuffed metal lockbox.
Vanessa stood near the floor-to-ceiling windows, her arms crossed tight against her chest, her knuckles pale.
Luca sat behind the desk. When we walked in, he gestured to two chairs.
“Sit, Lily. Thomas.”
We sat.
Luca looked down at the metal box. Then he looked at Marcus.
“Where’s the key, Marcus?”
“I don’t have it, boss! I swear on my life, I don’t have it!” Marcus stammered, sweat pouring down his forehead. “I found it in the garden after the fire. I got scared! I thought someone was trying to hit the house, so I took it and ran!”
“You took it and ran toward a train to Detroit,” Luca noted calmly. “With twelve thousand dollars in cash stuffed in your duffel bag.”
Luca picked up an antique brass letter opener. He wedged the blade beneath the lock mechanism of the metal box. With a sharp twist of his wrist, the lock snapped with a loud crack.
Vanessa flinched.
Luca lifted the heavy lid.
Inside the box lay a single brick wrapped in old newspapers and a small, cracked digital recorder with its memory card ripped out.
Nothing else.
Luca stared into the empty metal interior for five solid seconds.
Then, slowly, he raised his eyes to Marcus.
“A brick,” Luca said smoothly. “You ran to Union Station with a train ticket and a duffel full of cash for a box containing a brick.”
Marcus looked genuinely baffled. “What? No! I grabbed the box from the shed! The old man put it under the pots, so I grabbed it when the coast was clear!”
Luca turned his head toward Vanessa.
“A decoy,” Luca said.
Vanessa swallowed hard. “He’s obviously lying, Luca. The gardener must have hid the real contents somewhere else and set up this fool to take the blame!”
“No,” Luca said, standing up tall. His frame dominated the room. “Thomas didn’t create a decoy. The man who dug the rose up did.”
Luca walked over to Marcus. He leaned down, placing both hands on the arms of the guard’s chair.
“Who hired you to disable camera sector four last night, Marcus?”
“Boss, please—”
“Who paid you the twelve thousand dollars?”
Marcus’s eyes darted toward the window. Toward Vanessa.
Vanessa didn’t move. But her throat bobbed.
“Marcus,” Luca’s voice was lethal velvet. “If you lie to me, you leave this house in several pieces. If you tell me the truth, you walk out of here alive, get on that train, and never show your face in New York again.”
Marcus broke. He began to weep openly.
“It wasn't Miss Bellini directly!” Marcus cried out. “It was her brother! Marco Bellini! He called me yesterday afternoon. He told me to blind the south cameras between 1:30 and 2:30 AM and to secure whatever package the digger retrieved. But the digger got jumped by the old man! Marco panicked and told me to grab whatever Thomas stashed in the potting shed and run!”
The room went dead silent.
Luca stood straight. He turned to Vanessa.
Her engagement ring—a five-carat flawless diamond—caught the library light.
“Marco?” Luca asked her. “Your brother is digging up my mother’s garden?”
“He’s lying!” Vanessa screamed, her polished veneer finally cracking into shards of hysteria. “Luca, my family has stood by yours for thirty years! Why would Marco care about some dead woman’s flowers?”
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Luca took two steps toward her. The air around him felt charged with static.
“Because whatever was in that ground,” Luca said, “my mother died to protect. And your family killed her for it.”
