Chapter 3 - The Patient Man
Valentina slid Marco’s phone across the desk and let it strike the wood.
“Call her again.”
Marco did not move.
“Why?”
“Because I want to hear what you say when I’m listening.”
His mouth hardened.
“That is not how trust works.”
“No. This is how suspicion works.”
Nico closed the study curtains.
Tomas dialed Evelyn from Marco’s secondary line and put it on speaker.
One ring.
Two.
Then Evelyn answered in a whisper.
“Did she open it?”
Nobody breathed.
Marco reached for the phone.
Valentina caught his wrist.
Evelyn kept talking.
“Marco? Did the girl open the can?”
Valentina released him.
Marco stared at her.
Then he spoke.
“It’s me.”
Evelyn went silent.
Valentina leaned toward the phone.
“No,” she said. “It’s me.”
The call ended.
Marco swore under his breath.
Valentina was already moving.
Evelyn was in a downstairs sitting room with two guards outside and a glass of water untouched on the table.
She stood when Valentina entered.
“Where is Lily?”
“Safe.”
Evelyn’s shoulders dropped a fraction.
“Good.”
Valentina closed the door.
“Why did Marco call you?”
“He was checking on Gerald.”
“Lie again and I bring Gerald in here.”
Evelyn’s eyes shifted.
Valentina stepped closer.
“He did not ask if Gerald was alive. He asked if Lily opened the can.”
Evelyn’s face lost color.
Valentina waited.
“You want protection?”
No answer.
“You want your son protected?”
Evelyn looked up sharply.
There it was.
Valentina filed it away.
“Tell me what Garden Seven is.”
Evelyn rubbed both palms against her skirt.
“I don’t know the name.”
“But you know something.”
“Gerald has moved things through the garden for months.”
“What things?”
“Containers. Sealed boxes. Small packages. Always during events. Always when staff were distracted.”
“Who gave the orders?”
Evelyn looked at the ceiling.
“Sometimes Gerald.”
“And sometimes?”
She did not answer.
Valentina followed her gaze.
A security camera sat above the door.
Tiny red light on.
Valentina crossed the room and ripped its cable from the wall.
Evelyn finally breathed.
“Marco.”
Valentina did not blink.
“He would call Gerald, tell him which cooler, which cabinet, which crate. Gerald never asked why.”
“Why not?”
“Because Marco knew about the charity accounts.”
The laundering.
Gerald had been skimming from Carbone shell charities for years.
Valentina had suspected theft.
Not this.
Evelyn looked past her toward the garden windows.
“The picnic cabinet.”
“What about it?”
“When Gerald went down, something broke loose.”
They crossed the lawn under armed escort.
The broken cabinet lay where Valentina had left it.
Evelyn crouched and reached under a split shelf.
Her fingers came back with a brass key taped underneath.
Stamped into the bow:
G7 LOWER ACCESS.
Valentina took it.
“Where does this open?”
Evelyn’s eyes moved toward the old garden storage building beyond the hedges.
Then she whispered:
May you like
“Something underneath your house.”
