The Man in the Garden
Chapter 06 - The Man in the Garden
Lily had seen Lorenzo.
Not in photographs.
Not in dreams.
In the garden.
“At night,” she said, sitting between Clara and Dante in the old chapel while Mrs. Bell held a blanket around her shoulders. “When Mommy was sleeping and I had to be very quiet.”
Clara looked physically ill. “Lily, baby, when?”
The child thought hard. Time meant little at three. Yesterday and last winter lived in the same room inside her head.
“When the flowers were asleep.”
Dante looked at Marco.
Marco rubbed a hand over his face. “The night gardener waters the greenhouse at eleven.”
Lily shook her head. “No. Later. Bunny and me saw him by the lion.”
There were two stone lions at the south garden steps.
Dante’s pulse slowed.
“What did the man say?”
“He said I got tall.”
Clara made a sound and turned away.
Lily touched her mother’s sleeve. “Don’t cry. He said not to tell because bad people hear walls.”
Dante stood so suddenly the chapel bench scraped stone.
If Lorenzo was alive, then every truth had become unstable. If Lorenzo was alive and had come onto the estate, then either the security had failed beyond forgiveness or someone had let him in.
Or Marco had.
Marco seemed to understand the thought at the same time.
“Check the south garden footage,” he said to a guard before Dante could order it. “Every camera. Last thirty nights.”
The guard ran.
Dante looked at Clara. “You knew?”
“No.”
“Clara.”
“I didn’t.” Her voice cracked. “Do you think I would have stayed in a maid’s room scrubbing floors if I knew he was walking around your garden alive?”
That was fair.
He hated fair answers when he wanted someone to blame.
Mrs. Bell took Lily aside again with the repaired bear, promising hot chocolate from the chapel kitchen that hadn’t been used since Dante’s grandmother still believed priests could save Romano men.
When they were gone, Clara pressed both hands over her face.
“He promised he would come back,” she whispered. “Five years ago, he said he was going to trade the ledger for our safety and then come back. I waited in that lodge for three days. Lily was sick. There was no heat. Then the news came that he was dead.”
“Who brought you the news?”
“Mrs. Vale.”
Dante’s expression hardened.
“She found me there. Said Lorenzo had betrayed everyone and that if you knew about Lily, you would see her as a liability. I didn’t want to believe her.” Clara looked up. “Then she showed me a photograph.”
“What photograph?”
“You, outside the church after Lorenzo’s funeral. You looked…”
“Like what?”
“Like you hated the entire world.”
“I did.”
“She told me that was what Romano grief became. She told me if I brought Lily to you, you would either use her or hide her until she became useful.”
Dante looked toward the sacristy where Lily’s small voice was explaining to Mrs. Bell that Bunny did not drink hot chocolate because he was “made of feelings.”
“I might have,” he said.
Clara stared at him.
“Five years ago,” Dante continued. “I was not kind then.”
“And now?”
“No.”
The answer surprised her into silence.
Dante met her eyes. “But I know the difference between protection and ownership. I learned it badly. I learned it late. But I learned.”
For the first time, Clara looked at him without fear standing between them.
A guard returned with a tablet.
Marco took it, watched, and swore.
Dante stepped closer.
The footage was grainy. South garden. 2:06 a.m. Four nights earlier.
A man stood beside the stone lion in a dark coat.
His face turned briefly toward the camera.
Older. Thinner. Bearded.
But alive.
Lorenzo.
Clara reached for the edge of the altar to keep standing.
The footage showed Lily appearing at the servants’ door, holding Bunny. Lorenzo crouched, spoke to her, and placed one finger over his mouth.
Then he looked directly at the camera.
Not by accident.
He knew where it was.
He lifted his hand and held up three fingers.
Then he disappeared into the dark.
Marco rewound. “Three fingers. Three parts of the ledger.”
“No,” Clara said quietly.
Dante looked at her.
She was staring at Lorenzo’s hand.
“That’s not what it means.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he used to do it to Lily.”
Her voice went thin.
“It means run.”
Before anyone could respond, the chapel phone rang—an old landline embedded in the wall, a line Dante did not know still worked.
No one moved.
It rang again.
Dante lifted the receiver.
Static breathed through the line.
Then Lorenzo Romano said, “Dante, if you are hearing this, Enzo is not the one hunting the child.”
Dante gripped the phone.
“Lorenzo.”
The voice continued, and Dante realized with a chill that it was a recording.
“The wolf in the house is not beside you. She has been dead for years.”
Clara’s face changed.
Dante heard his mother’s name before the recording spoke it.
“Mother built the Red Hand.”
May you like
The line clicked dead.
And somewhere above them, Lily began to scream.
