Chapter 4 - The Greenhouse Confession
Half a mile away, deep within the frost-covered gardens, the old Victorian greenhouse loomed like a skeletal cage against the pale moonlight.
Dominic Moretti stepped through the cracked glass double doors, his black leather boots crunching over shards of flowerpots and frozen soil. Marco stood over a dark heap in the corner near a row of dormant rosebushes.
It was Emily Price.
Her uniform jacket was torn, her breathing shallow and ragged. A deep, ugly bruise darkened the side of her temple where she had been struck with something heavy.
Dominic crouched beside her, his expression unreadable. He placed two fingers against her neck, checking her pulse. "She’s stabilizing, but she took a heavy blow."
"Who did this to her?" Marco muttered, shining his tactical flashlight across the damp floorboards. "She didn't do this to herself. Whoever disabled the security feed must have turned on her when she tried to back out."
Emily’s eyelids fluttered. A low, agonizing groan escaped her lips.
Dominic leaned closer, his voice dropping into a low, commanding register that brook no argument. "Emily. Can you hear me?"
The young housemaid’s eyes slowly opened, filled with dazed terror. She stared up at the towering mafia boss, her lips trembling. "Mr... Mr. Moretti..."
"Who gave you the powder, Emily?" Dominic asked softly, though his eyes burned with lethal intensity. "Who made you disable the cameras?"
Emily clutched blindly at the dirt, coughing weakly. "I... I didn't want to. They said... they said if I didn't swap the frosting trays in the cold room, my brother..." She choked on a sob, tears spilling down her pale cheeks. "They have my brother, Mr. Moretti. They said they'd kill him."
Marco’s face darkened. "Who? Names, Emily. Who threatened him?"
"I don't know his name," she wept, her breath hitching. "He wore a gray coat. He met me behind the stables yesterday. He gave me the silver box... he said just a pinch in the top tier of Ethan’s cake would make the allergy trigger look like a natural collapse."
Dominic stood up slowly, towering over the injured girl. The air around him dropped in temperature, heavy with a suffocating, murderous fury.
"Boss," Marco said quietly, stepping back. "What do we do?"
Dominic looked out through the shattered glass of the greenhouse toward the main mansion, where a single light burned in the staff wing.
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"They thought they could use a child’s birthday to settle an old war," Dominic said, his voice dangerously smooth. "They wanted to destroy my son. Instead, they woke up a sleeping dog."
He turned back to Marco. "Get the medical team to move Emily to the secure underground clinic. Double the guards at the house. And bring me the estate visitor logs from the last forty-eight hours. Every single name."
