Chapter 12 - The Garden AmbushClaire did not remember sitting down.
One moment she was standing in the west tower room staring at a photograph of Rosie’s missing father beside Dante’s dead wife. The next she was in a chair, one hand pressed to her mouth, the other gripping the edge of the desk like the floor might betray her.
Dante stayed across from her.
He did not reach out.
Some part of her appreciated that. Another part hated that he knew better.
“Marco knew Elena?” she asked.
“I don’t know how well.”
“Don’t do that.”
His eyes lifted. “Do what?”
“Give me careful answers when the truth is bleeding all over the table.”
Dante’s jaw tightened. “Marco Bell appears in three files. Courier. Informant. Possible witness. Elena marked his name twice.”
Claire looked at the papers. “Witness to what?”
“Payments routed through my private account.”
“Your sister.”
“Likely.”
“Likely?”
“I need proof.”
Claire laughed bitterly. “You people and proof. My whole life just got dragged into your dead wife’s escape plan, and you need proof?”
“Yes,” Dante said. “Because without proof, I kill the wrong person.”
The sentence went through her like ice.
There it was. The world he came from. The truth beneath the suits and contracts and careful manners.
Claire stood. “I should take Rosie and leave.”
“You can’t.”
“Watch me.”
“If you leave now, they follow you with fewer walls between them and your daughter.”
“I won’t be trapped here because danger outside is worse.”
“You aren’t trapped.”
“Then open the gates.”
Dante looked at her for a long moment.
Then he took out his phone. “I’ll have a car brought around.”
She had expected a fight.
The absence of one frightened her more.
“Just like that?”
His voice was low. “If you stay because I force you, I become what Elena feared.”
Claire had no answer.
By morning, she had packed nothing because there was nowhere to go.
The landlord had ruined the old apartment. Patty’s place was too small and now watched. Rosie’s school had been contacted by reporters asking about Claire’s new employer. Someone had leaked enough to make the world dangerous but not enough to make it clear.
Claire hated the cage.
She hated more that the cage had breakfast, guards, and four children looking at her like she was the only adult who still made sense.
So she stayed.
But she made Dante earn every minute.
The garden ambush happened on Sunday.
Claire had insisted the children needed outside air. Dante argued. Claire won because Rosie looked pale, Matteo was chewing his sleeve, Nico had drawn twenty-seven towers in one morning, and Luca had begun patrolling the hallway with a curtain rod.
“Sunlight,” Claire said, “before all of you become haunted furniture.”
The back garden was enormous, enclosed by hedges and watched by security. The children ran toward a maze of trimmed boxwood, with two guards posted near the fountain and another by the terrace.
Claire sat on a bench with Dante several feet away.
Not beside her.
Near enough to react.
Far enough to pretend it meant nothing.
“You hover,” she said.
“I protect.”
“You hover with a gun.”
He glanced at her. “Better?”
“No.”
For a few minutes, they watched the children.
Rosie and Nico collected stones. Matteo chased Luca with a stick he claimed was a royal sword. Luca pretended annoyance but slowed so Matteo could catch him.
The sight loosened something in Claire’s chest.
“They need this,” she said.
“I know.”
“Then why did it take me forcing you?”
“Because every open sky looks like a threat after you’ve seen one fall.”
She looked at him then.
His eyes remained on the children.
“You were there,” she said. “At the crash.”
“Yes.”
“What did you see?”
His hand flexed against his knee.
“Rain. Smoke. Elena trapped in the driver’s seat. Luca bleeding. Nico silent. Matteo screaming. A man limping away.”
“Carlo Voss.”
“Yes.”
“Did Elena speak?”
Dante closed his eyes.
Claire regretted asking, but he answered.
“She said, ‘The tower is inside.’”
Claire frowned. “Inside what?”
“I thought she meant the house.”
“And now?”
“I think she meant the family.”
Before Claire could answer, Nico screamed.
Dante was moving before the sound finished.
Claire ran after him into the hedge maze.
The children were clustered near a stone angel statue. Nico stood rigid, pointing toward the bushes.
A phone lay on the ground.
Old. Black. Ringing.
Dante grabbed it.
“Don’t,” Claire said.
He answered anyway.
A woman’s voice came through, soft and amused.
“Hello, brother.”
Dante’s face hardened. “Serafina.”
The children froze.
Claire pulled them behind her.
Serafina’s voice floated from the speaker. “The garden looks lovely. Elena always said it felt like a beautiful prison.”
Dante scanned the hedges.
Claire’s blood chilled.
She can see us.
“How are you calling?” Dante said. “You’re in custody.”
Serafina laughed. “Am I?”
Henry’s voice crackled over Dante’s earpiece at the same moment. Claire saw his expression change.
Serafina had escaped.
Of course she had.
“I want what Elena stole,” Serafina said.
“You won’t get near my sons.”
“I don’t need all three.”
Luca went pale.
Dante’s voice became deadly. “Say that again.”
“Luca remembers the numbers. Nico remembers the sounds. Matteo remembers the face. Elena divided the key between them. Clever mother. Cruel mother.”
Claire looked at the boys.
Elena had hidden more than papers.
She had hidden a code inside her children’s memories.
Serafina continued, “But now you have a new problem. The waitress’s daughter remembers something too.”
Claire’s arms tightened around Rosie.
Rosie whispered, “Mommy?”
Serafina’s voice softened. “Ask Rosie about the song her father used to sing.”
Claire stopped breathing.
Rosie’s face changed.
“What song?” Claire whispered.
Her daughter looked suddenly younger. “The one from the phone.”
“What phone?”
Rosie’s eyes filled. “The old phone in your closet. Daddy’s phone.”
Claire stared.
She had forgotten it.
No, not forgotten. Buried.
Marco’s cracked prepaid phone, dead for years, tossed into a box of old memories because throwing it away had felt like admitting he would never call again.
But their apartment had been searched.
“They didn’t find it,” Claire whispered.
Dante turned to her.
“Where is it now?” he asked.
Claire’s mind raced.
The eviction. The trash bags. Patty.
“My things,” she said. “They’re outside the old building.”
Dante was already calling his men.
But then Rosie spoke again, voice small.
“I put it in my backpack.”
Everyone turned.
Rosie reached into her unicorn bag with trembling hands and pulled out an old black phone.
The screen was cracked.
The case faded.
Dante stared at it like it was a bomb.
On the speaker, Serafina went silent.
Then she whispered, “Smart little girl.”
The line cut.
Claire took the phone from Rosie, hands shaking.
It should have been dead.
It had been dead for years.
But when Dante pressed the power button, the screen flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then lit up.
One audio file appeared.
Untitled.
Dante looked at Claire.
Claire nodded.
He pressed play.
Marco’s voice came through the tiny speaker, terrified and breathless.
“Claire, if you find this, don’t trust anyone with a tower. Elena Rinaldi is trying to save her sons. And Rosie… Rosie isn’t safe because of me.”
The recording crackled.
Then, in the background, a woman screamed.
Elena.
May you like
And Marco whispered the sentence that made Dante stagger.
“Dante didn’t betray her. His blood did.”
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