Chapter 4 - The Greenhouse Secret
Matteo did not defend his father.
That frightened Nia more than if he had.
The following morning, while Dr. Keller examined Matteo and declared his recovery “medically remarkable but still fragile,” Enzo traced Dr. Evelyn Hart’s call to a prepaid phone near Annapolis.
Matteo wanted to send men.
Nia insisted on going.
“You were nearly murdered yesterday,” Matteo said.
“And you were nearly murdered for 3 weeks.”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“I’m accustomed to it.”
Nia stared at him.
“That may be the saddest thing you’ve said.”
Matteo had no answer.
By afternoon, Nia and Enzo were driving toward an abandoned garden center outside Annapolis while Matteo remained at the estate under protest.
Dr. Hart was waiting inside an old greenhouse.
She was 68, thin, silver-haired, and terrified.
When she saw Nia, she began crying.
“You look like Ruth.”
Nia stopped.
“You knew my grandmother?”
“She saved my career.”
“Then tell me why someone destroyed my apartment.”
Hart looked toward Enzo.
“He cannot hear this.”
“He can.”
“Nia—”
“He can.”
Hart surrendered.
Project Eden had begun as legitimate research.
Matteo’s father, Vittorio Costa, had invested millions into developing low-cost cardiac medications derived from botanical compounds. Ruth Lewis had been hired because she understood medicinal plants better than many credentialed researchers.
The work could have saved lives.
Then Carlo discovered another use for it.
“Your grandmother realized he was stealing research,” Hart said. “Not to create medicine. To learn which natural compounds could mimic disease.”
Enzo’s expression hardened.
“Undetectable poisons.”
Hart nodded.
“Or difficult-to-detect ones.”
Nia felt sick.
“Why didn’t Grandma tell the police?”
“She tried.”
“What happened?”
“The laboratory burned 3 days later.”
Nia remembered the story.
Her grandmother had told her a lightning strike destroyed an old greenhouse.
There had been no lightning.
“Was my grandmother hurt?”
“No. But she understood the warning.”
“And Vittorio Costa?”
Hart looked uncomfortable.
“He shut Eden down.”
“Because he discovered Carlo?”
“Because Elena Costa discovered Carlo.”
Matteo’s mother.
Nia’s thoughts raced.
“What happened to Elena?”
Hart looked away.
Enzo stepped forward.
“Answer her.”
“Officially? A car accident.”
“And unofficially?”
Hart’s eyes filled.
“I believe Carlo killed her.”
Back at the estate, Matteo listened without interruption.
Then he asked everyone to leave except Nia.
He sat beside the window wearing a dark sweater, thinner than he had been in the photograph Nia had seen downstairs but no longer corpse-like.
“My mother’s brakes failed,” he said.
“You were there?”
“No. I was 19. I was supposed to ride with her.”
Nia sat opposite him.
“What changed?”
“She told me to stay home.”
“Why?”
“She had been frightened for weeks.”
Matteo stared outside.
“She kept saying there were people inside the family she no longer trusted. My father thought she was paranoid.”
“And after she died?”
“My father became someone else.”
Matteo rubbed his hands together.
“He stopped sleeping. Became violent. Suspicious. He died 4 years later.”
“How?”
“Heart attack.”
Nia’s blood ran cold.
“Matteo.”
“I know.”
The implication hung between them.
Perhaps Vittorio Costa had not died naturally either.
Perhaps Carlo had been removing obstacles for nearly 2 decades.
Nia opened Ruth’s surviving notebook.
“What did Carlo want?”
“Power.”
“No. Back then you were 19. Your father was alive. Carlo was young. This started before there was a throne to steal.”
Matteo looked at her.
“You think there’s something else.”
“I think people don’t spend 18 years protecting a secret unless that secret is worth something.”
They searched Ruth’s journal together.
At midnight, Nia found it.
Not in the botanical notes.
Inside the back cover.
Her grandmother had drawn a crude map.
At the center was a greenhouse.
Beside it, 3 words:
ELENA HID EVERYTHING.
Underneath was an Oregon address.
Nia recognized it.
Her childhood home.
The property had been abandoned since her grandmother’s death.
“We’re going,” Nia said.
Matteo stood.
“So am I.”
“You can barely climb stairs.”
“I’ll climb slowly.”
“You almost died.”
“I noticed.”
“You need rest.”
Matteo stepped closer.
“And you need protection.”
“I have Enzo.”
“He likes you less.”
From the doorway, Enzo said, “I can hear you.”
Nia laughed despite herself.
It was the first time Matteo heard the sound.
He looked at her differently.
For one brief second, neither poison nor murder existed.
Then an alarm sounded downstairs.
Enzo’s phone buzzed.
His face changed.
“Carlo escaped.”
Matteo turned.
“How?”
“Someone killed both guards.”
Nia’s smile vanished.
Enzo continued.
“And he left you something.”
Downstairs, one of the dining room walls had been covered with photographs.
Nia.
Matteo.
Ruth Lewis.
Elena Costa.
Dr. Hart.
At the center was a photograph of the abandoned Oregon greenhouse.
A red X had been drawn across it.
Below it, Carlo had written:
YOU SHOULD HAVE LET HIM DIE.
Matteo stared at the message.
Nia stood beside him.
“You still want to go?”
“Yes.”
“So do I.”
Matteo looked at her.
“Then we leave tonight.”
They never made it to the airport.
At 1:08 a.m., the estate went dark.
Gunfire erupted at the front gate.
Enzo shouted for everyone to get down.
Matteo grabbed Nia and pulled her behind a marble column as glass exploded across the foyer.
Outside, engines roared.
Men were attacking from 3 directions.
Not Carlo’s handful of loyalists.
An army.
Matteo looked through the shattered window.
His expression changed.
“These aren’t Carlo’s men.”
“Whose are they?” Nia whispered.
Matteo recognized the insignia on one of the vehicles.
“The Luces.”
Enzo crouched beside them.
“Carlo sold us out.”
Matteo shook his head.
“No.”
Another explosion shook the house.
Matteo looked toward Nia.
“Carlo didn’t betray us tonight.”
May you like
“What do you mean?”
“He’s been working with them from the beginning.”
