Chapter 5
CHAPTER 5: The Letter Beneath the Flowers
For three months, the Moretti estate felt like a place reborn.
The broken windows were replaced.
The bullet marks along the stone walls were repaired.
The guards still stood at every gate, but the air no longer carried the same suffocating tension. Matteo laughed again. He ran through the gardens with his toy airplanes, chased by two golden retrievers Vincent had bought after Lily quietly mentioned she had always wanted dogs as a child.
Lily tried to learn how to live inside happiness.
That was harder than surviving danger.
Pain had rules.
Fear had patterns.
But love was unpredictable.
Every morning, Vincent would find her in the kitchen before sunrise, still helping the staff prepare breakfast out of habit.
“You don’t work here anymore,” he would remind her gently.
And every morning, Lily would smile and say, “I know.”
Then she would keep cutting fruit anyway.
The staff loved her for it.
Matteo adored her for everything.
Vincent watched her as if each ordinary moment was proof of a miracle he was afraid to lose.
Their wedding was planned for early autumn.
Not a grand public spectacle. Not a mafia alliance disguised as romance. Not a political statement.
A family wedding.
Small.
Private.
Safe.
At least, that was what Vincent believed.
Until the black envelope arrived.
It came on a rainy Tuesday afternoon, tucked beneath a vase of white lilies in the front hall. No one saw who delivered it. No guard remembered a stranger. No camera caught a face.
Just the envelope.
Black paper.
No stamp.
No address.
Only one name written across the front in silver ink.
Lily Sinclair.
Vincent was in a meeting when Marco brought it to him.
The moment Vincent saw Lily’s name, his expression changed.
“Where is she?”
“With Matteo in the library.”
Vincent stood at once.
Marco held up a hand.
“Vincent. There’s something else.”
He turned the envelope over.
Pressed into the wax seal was a symbol Vincent had not seen in years.
A white rose wrapped around a knife.
His late wife’s family crest.
Vincent went still.
“That’s impossible.”
Marco’s voice was low.
“It belonged to Isabella.”
Vincent stared at the seal.
His first wife, Isabella, had been dead for five years.
Her family line had ended with her.
No one should have been using that crest.
No one except someone who wanted to reach inside Vincent’s chest and twist the oldest wound he had.
“Open it,” Vincent said.
Marco broke the seal carefully.
Inside was a single photograph.
Old.
Faded.
Slightly burned along one edge.
Vincent took it.
At first, he saw Isabella.
Young, radiant, standing in the garden of the Moretti estate in a pale summer dress.
Beside her stood another young woman.
Dark-haired.
Gentle-eyed.
Holding a baby wrapped in a yellow blanket.
Vincent’s breath stopped.
He knew that woman.
Not by name.
By memory.
She had worked in the estate years ago.
A quiet maid who disappeared shortly before Isabella died.
On the back of the photograph, written in Isabella’s handwriting, were seven words.
If anything happens, protect her daughter.
Vincent looked up slowly.
Marco’s face had gone pale.
A second piece of paper slipped from the envelope and landed on the desk.
Vincent picked it up.
It was a birth record.
The mother’s name: Elena Sinclair.
The child’s name: Lily Sinclair.
And beneath that, in handwritten ink, a note:
She was never brought to your house by accident.
Vincent’s hand tightened around the paper.
At that exact moment, Lily appeared in the doorway.
She was smiling at first.
Then she saw Vincent’s face.
“What happened?”
Vincent said nothing.
Lily’s eyes dropped to the photograph in his hand.
Her smile vanished.
She stepped closer slowly.
Then she saw the woman holding the baby.
Her voice became a whisper.
“Mom?”
The room fell silent.
Lily reached for the photograph with trembling fingers.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “Where did you get this?”
Vincent could barely speak.
“It came for you.”
Lily turned the photograph over and read Isabella’s message.
Her eyes filled instantly.
“Protect her daughter?”
Vincent looked at Marco.
Marco looked away.
Lily saw it.
Her voice changed.
“Marco.”
He closed his eyes.
Lily’s heart began to pound.
“You know something.”
Marco did not answer.
Vincent’s voice hardened.
“Marco.”
The older man looked older than he had that morning. Tired. Haunted. As if a secret he had carried for years had finally become too heavy.
“I knew Elena,” he said quietly.
Lily’s breath caught.
“My mother?”
Marco nodded.
“She was Isabella’s closest servant. More than that. They were friends.”
Lily took one step back.
“My mother never told me she worked here.”
“She couldn’t,” Marco said.
“Why?”
Marco looked at Vincent.
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
“Tell her.”
Marco swallowed.
“Because Elena believed someone inside this house was responsible for Isabella’s death.”
The air left the room.
Vincent stared at him.
“What did you just say?”
Marco’s eyes filled with pain.
“Isabella didn’t trust Bianca. But before she died, she also stopped trusting someone closer.”
Lily’s hands shook around the photograph.
“Who?”
Marco turned toward the window.
Rain streaked down the glass like tears.
“I don’t know.”
Vincent’s voice was dangerously quiet.
“Five years. You knew this for five years and said nothing?”
“I had no proof.”
“You had my wife’s warning.”
Marco looked at him with broken loyalty.
“And I had a child to protect.”
Lily froze.
May you like
Marco looked directly at her.
“You.”
