Chapter 6 - BENEATH THE GREENHOUSE
The greenhouse stood beyond the old orchard.
Its glass roof was clouded with dirt.
Dead vines curled around rusted frames.
Gabriel’s men cut through the lock while Marisol documented the search.
Tommy remained inside the mansion with Maya and Elena.
Luca refused to let the children follow.
A concrete hatch lay beneath a row of broken planting tables.
Samuel’s map showed a tunnel connecting the greenhouse to the estate’s former wine cellar.
Gabriel opened the hatch.
Cold air rose from below.
Luca could not descend the narrow stairs in his wheelchair.
For twelve years, physical barriers had decided where he could go.
This time, he refused to remain behind.
Gabriel and two guards secured Luca into a reinforced transport chair and carried him down.
The tunnel smelled of damp stone and chemicals.
At the far end stood a metal door.
Inside was a laboratory.
Old refrigeration units lined the walls.
Shelves held empty vials with labels removed.
A medical cot stood beneath a ceiling light.
Luca stared at the leather restraints attached to its sides.
“This was built inside my home,” he said.
Gabriel lowered his eyes.
“Before I became security chief.”
Marisol photographed everything.
A filing cabinet contained research notes describing progressive nerve suppression.
The subject was identified only as L.C.
Dosage calculations matched Luca’s age and weight at the time of his collapse.
Another file contained surveillance photographs of Elena.
One showed her leaving the South Side apartment where she and Luca had spent the summer together.
Another showed her entering a clinic months later with a visible pregnancy.
Someone had known about Maya from the beginning.
A ledger listed monthly payments to Elena’s former landlord.
He had reported her location for six years.
The payments stopped after she moved under a shortened version of her mother’s surname.
Elena had not hidden Maya from Luca.
Someone had hidden Luca from them.
Gabriel opened a locked cabinet.
Inside were personal belongings.
A gardener’s identification badge.
A wedding ring.
A photograph of Tommy as a toddler.
Samuel Reyes had reached the laboratory.
He had discovered the truth.
Then someone had made him disappear.
Marisol found a sealed plastic bag behind the cabinet.
It contained a bloodstained shirt and a cassette tape.
They played the tape in the mansion study.
Samuel’s voice filled the room.
“If Luca hears this, your father’s plan did not end when Vittorio died.”
“Salvatore is taking orders from someone inside the family.”
“The woman controls the medicine.”
“She knows about the child.”
A door opened on the recording.
Samuel gasped.
Then a woman spoke.
“You should have stayed in the garden.”
The tape ended.
Elena stood beside Luca.
“Do you recognize her voice?”
Luca replayed it.
The woman sounded older now in his memory, but he knew her.
She had raised him after his mother died.
She had kissed his forehead before every dangerous meeting.
She had sat beside his hospital bed after he collapsed.
May you like
Luca whispered her name.
“Aunt Bianca.”
