Chapter 3 - Secrets in the Solarium
The private solarium on the third floor of the estate was a glass conservatory filled with exotic orchids and jasmine, originally built for Donna Isabella Moretti. It had remained locked since the day of her funeral, untouched by the maids under strict orders from Luca. But tonight, it served as the only room in the sprawling mansion that had never been wired with automated surveillance.
Dr. Harris had cleaned Emma’s cuts, wrapped her bruised wrists in soft gauze, and administered an anti-inflammatory injection before Luca dismissed him under an oath of absolute silence. Now, only Luca and Emma sat beneath the glass dome, surrounded by the humid scent of damp earth and blooming night-flowers.
Emma held a steaming porcelain mug of tea between her bandaged hands. Across the wrought-iron table, Luca placed the tiny brass key she had guarded beneath her clothes for nearly a year.
"My mother told the estate attorney that her will was final," Luca began, leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "She left the legitimate holdings to the trust, the shipping lanes to my cousins, and the leadership of the family enterprise to me, under the condition that I secure a dynastic alliance through marriage. That was why Bianca Romano was chosen."
Emma looked down at the dark amber surface of her tea. "Donna Isabella loved you too much to leave you chained to a viper, Mr. Moretti. The will the lawyers read was a decoy. Your mother suspected she was being poisoned."
The air in the solarium turned freezing cold. Luca’s eyes hardened into black flint. "What did you say?"
"Three months before her death, Donna Isabella began feeling dizzy after her afternoon broth," Emma said, her words steadying as the truth finally broke free. "She asked me to collect samples of her tea leaves and keep them in a sealed jar in the root cellar. She forbade me from taking them to any local hospital. She told me the doctors who visited this house were on someone else's payroll."
Emma reached into her apron pocket and retrieved a folded piece of linen parchment, brittle with age and sealed with a droplet of Isabella's signature crimson wax.
"She told me that if she died suddenly, I was to wait until the grief settled, until the conspirators felt secure enough to expose their true objective. She said Bianca wasn't acting alone. Bianca was planted by the Romano family to absorb the Moretti ports through the marriage contract. But the second will... the true will... changes everything."
"Where is it hidden?" Luca demanded, the veins along his neck pulsing with controlled fury.
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Emma looked up, meeting his intense gaze without flinching for the first time. "It’s hidden in the one place your mother knew Bianca would never dare to kneel. In the family crypt, inside the reliquary beneath your father’s casket."
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