Chapter 15 - Garden Seven
Valentina fired once into the ceiling before anyone moved.
“Stay where you are.”
Darkness swallowed the room.
Lily screamed upstairs.
Valentina was moving before the sound finished.
Emergency lights failed.
That meant sabotage.
Not power loss.
Adrian followed her up the stairs.
Nico stayed below with Marco.
At the nursery door, one guard was down.
The second was gone.
Valentina kicked the door open.
Lily stood beside the bed crying.
Rosa held her.
The window was open.
A black-clad man was halfway through it.
Adrian hit him from behind and dragged him inside.
The man wore a Carbone security badge.
Fake.
Valentina tore off the mask.
Paolo.
One of Marco’s old loyalists.
“Who else?”
He smiled through split lips.
Valentina pressed the barrel under his chin.
“Who else?”
“Garden Seven isn’t yours.”
Footsteps thundered below.
Nico shouted her name.
They ran downstairs.
Marco’s chair was empty.
One guard lay unconscious.
The other clutched a knife wound in his side.
Gerald pointed toward the garden doors.
“He took the drive.”
Valentina handed Lily to Rosa again.
“No more leaving her.”
Then she ran.
Garden Seven’s hatch stood open.
Marco was below.
So was the burn barrel.
He had Adrian’s evidence drive in one hand and Domenico’s ledger in the other.
“Stop.”
Marco turned.
Blood ran from his wrist.
“You can kill me.”
“I plan to.”
“But you cannot rebuild trust.”
Valentina descended one step.
“You never understood trust.”
“I understood it perfectly. That is why I used it.”
He tossed the evidence drive toward the barrel.
Adrian came through the hatch behind Valentina and fired.
The bullet hit Marco in the shoulder.
The drive bounced off the barrel rim and landed on the floor.
Nico came down next.
Marco looked around at all three of them.
Then laughed.
“You think this ends because you have records?”
Valentina picked up the drive.
“It ends because nobody believes you anymore.”
Marco’s eyes moved to Adrian.
“Does she believe you?”
Adrian said nothing.
Marco grinned.
“Ask him why the Garden Seven money kept moving after Domenico died.”
“We did.”
“No.”
Marco coughed and slid down the wall.
“Ask him where the money came from.”
Adrian went still.
Valentina turned.
“What does he mean?”
Adrian looked at Nico.
Nico opened the ledger’s final hidden flap.
A second transfer sheet was tucked inside.
Not millions.
Tens of millions.
The source account was not Moretti.
It was a custodial trust.
Beneficiary:
LILY CARBONE.
Valentina stared at Adrian.
“You used my daughter’s money.”
Adrian took one step back.
“To keep the archive alive.”
“You touched her trust without my permission.”
“Domenico authorized it.”
“He was dead.”
A phone began ringing in Marco’s pocket.
Once.
Twice.
Valentina pulled it free.
Unknown number.
She answered.
A man’s voice said only one sentence.
“Garden Seven was never Domenico’s archive.”
Valentina’s grip tightened.
“Who is this?”
The caller laughed softly.
Then said:
May you like
“It was Lily’s.”
The line went dead.
