The Conservatory Without Flowers
Chapter 10 - The Conservatory Without Flowers
Sloane had expected her father’s anger.
She had not expected Carlo’s men.
That was what Arthur pieced together from the frantic messages on her phone, the security alert at her building, and the broken heel left beside the service entrance of the Barrett townhouse.
Elena listened without interrupting.
Then she went upstairs.
When she came back down, she wore boots, a dark coat, and the expression of a woman who had learned fear could be folded into action if the children were watching.
“No,” I said.
She looked at me.
“That was not a question.”
“It should be.”
“I am going with you.”
“Elena, this is not—”
“If you say this is not my fight, I will remind you that your fight slept in my womb, learned to walk in my kitchen, and now wants to know whether his father has a castle.”
Arthur stared at the floor, either out of respect or self-preservation.
I looked toward the living room, where the boys were playing cards with Marco and cheating badly.
“They need you.”
“They need me not to become the kind of mother who hides while another woman is punished for helping us.”
I had no argument for that.
So we went.
Not to the Barrett townhouse.
Not to any place dramatic men in expensive coats would choose for a confrontation.
We went back to the conservatory.
By noon, the flowers were gone.
Only fallen petals remained beneath the glass roof. The chairs had been stacked against one wall. The aisle where I was supposed to propose had become a corridor of broken expectations.
Sloane sat near the fountain, wrists tied with a silk scarf from her own dress.
Her face was pale but unbruised.
Harrison stood beside her.
Carlo sat in the front row like an uncle attending a recital.
Three men waited near the doors.
Renzo stood among them.
That hurt.
He looked away first.
Harrison smiled when he saw Elena.
“So this is the famous mother.”
Elena did not flinch.
“I expected more hair.”
Arthur made a sound that might have been a cough.
Sloane laughed once, wild with relief and terror.
Her father’s smile disappeared.
Carlo looked at me.
“You brought her here?”
“She brought herself.”
Elena stepped beside me.
“I do that.”
Harrison’s gaze moved over her as if she were an item on a balance sheet.
“You have caused considerable inconvenience.”
“No,” she said. “You caused it. I survived it.”
Sloane closed her eyes briefly.
I looked at Renzo.
“You have ten seconds to decide whether Carlo owns your spine.”
Renzo swallowed.
Carlo’s voice sharpened.
“Stand where you are.”
Renzo looked from him to me.
Then, slowly, he stepped away from the door.
One small betrayal undone cannot erase the first.
But it can open a path.
Arthur’s men entered behind him.
Harrison’s smile vanished.
Carlo stood.
“You think documents save you? We are beyond paperwork.”
“No,” I said. “You are beneath it.”
Elena looked at me then.
I think she heard the difference.
The old Dominic would have made threats.
The man in that conservatory held a folder.
Arthur handed copies to two attorneys waiting near the side entrance. Sloane had called them before she was taken; she had been terrified, not foolish. One represented her. One represented Elena. Neither represented me.
That mattered.
Harrison understood it first.
“You went legal,” he said, disgusted.
“I went public,” Sloane whispered.
Her father turned.
“What did you do?”
Sloane lifted her chin.
“The engagement livestream never stopped.”
Silence.
My eyes moved to the balcony camera half-hidden behind a fern.
Sloane smiled through trembling lips.
“You always said public perception is leverage.”
Harrison struck her with his gaze before he moved one step.
Arthur blocked him.
“Careful,” Arthur said. “You’re very watchable right now.”
Carlo looked up at the camera.
For the first time in my life, my uncle looked small.
I handed him my mother’s letter.
“She knew you would call this protection.”
His hand shook.
“You think she was innocent?”
“No.”
That surprised him.
“My mother made a choice that hurt Elena. I will not make her a saint to make grief easier.”
Elena inhaled sharply.
“But you,” I continued, “took that choice and turned it into business.”
Carlo’s mouth opened.
Before he could speak, the conservatory doors opened again.
An old priest entered, leaning on a cane.
Father Benedetto.
The man who buried my mother.
Carlo went white.
The priest looked at me sadly.
“Your mother confessed something before she died.”
My skin tightened.
“What?”
He reached into his coat and removed a sealed envelope.
“She asked me to hold this until the boys came home.”
Harrison laughed harshly.
“This is absurd.”
Father Benedetto ignored him.
He handed the envelope to Elena, not me.
Inside were four baptismal certificates.
Nicholas Dominic Rossi.
Theodore Anthony Rossi.
Marco Julian Rossi.
Benjamin Luca Rossi.
Father’s name left blank.
Mother’s signature: Elena Rossi.
Witness: Lucia Moretti.
Elena’s hand covered her mouth.
“She came?”
The priest nodded.
“To Vermont. Twice. She saw them as babies.”
I could not breathe.
The anger I had carried toward my mother cracked open into something more complicated and more painful.
Then Father Benedetto removed one final page.
“She also recorded the man who followed her there.”
Carlo closed his eyes.
Father Benedetto looked at my uncle.
“I believe you know what is on it.”
Before anyone could stop him, Harrison pulled a phone from his pocket and pressed one button.
At the same moment, Arthur’s phone rang.
He listened.
Then looked at me.
His face had gone cold.
“The boys’ school just received a custody emergency petition.”
Elena grabbed my arm.
May you like
Arthur continued.
“Filed under your name, Dominic.”
