Chapter 6 - Midnight in the Greenhouse
The greenhouse stood at the far end of the garden.
It was made of glass and iron, filled with white roses, orchids, and tall palms that cast strange shadows under the moonlight.
From the safe room monitor, I watched Alejandro walk toward it alone.
At least, that was what Bellini thought.
Vincenzo and the guards were hidden around the garden. Mama was in the security room with me, watching every camera. Dr. Romano kept saying we should be far away from the windows.
But I didn’t want to leave.
“I have to see,” I told Mama.
She held my hand. “Okay.”
On the monitor, Alejandro entered the greenhouse.
The door closed behind him.
For a few seconds, nothing happened.
Then Bellini stepped out from behind a wall of climbing roses.
Teresa stood beside him.
And Detective Harris stood on the other side, holding a gun.
“I knew you would come,” Bellini said.
Alejandro looked at Teresa. “You?”
Teresa’s eyes were red. “My son owes money. Bellini said he would kill him.”
Bellini sighed. “People always make it sound so ugly.”
“You poisoned me,” Alejandro said.
“I tried to remove a problem.”
“And now?”
“Now I remove witnesses.”
Detective Harris lifted his gun.
Mama squeezed my hand so hard it hurt.
Then the monitor flickered.
Static filled the screen.
“No,” Vincenzo shouted from somewhere behind us. “They’re jamming the signal.”
The cameras went black.
Every single one.
Mama looked toward the door.
“What do we do?” she whispered.
Before anyone could answer, a sharp crack came from the garden.
A gunshot.
I screamed.
Vincenzo raced out of the security room.
Mama pulled me close, but I slipped from her arms.
Not because I wanted to be bad.
I just saw something.
On the wall beside the monitor was a control panel with little buttons. One of them had a picture of a lion.
Like my necklace.
I pointed. “What’s that?”
Mama looked at it. “I don’t know.”
I remembered Alejandro telling Vincenzo something earlier.
If the cameras fail, use the old system.
“The lion button!” I shouted.
Mama pressed it.
For one terrible second, nothing happened.
Then an old monitor in the corner flickered alive.
The picture was grainy and black-and-white.
But it showed the greenhouse.
Alejandro was on his knees.
Detective Harris held a gun against his head.
Bellini had the metal box with the evidence.
Teresa was crying.
“Give me the hard drive,” Bellini said.
Alejandro laughed softly. “You think it is in the box?”
Bellini’s face twisted. “Where is it?”
Alejandro looked directly at the old hidden camera.
Then he smiled.
Mama gasped.
“He knew.”
The hard drive had never been in the box.
The real footage had already been copied and sent somewhere else.
Bellini understood it too.
His face went white.
“You sent it to the authorities.”
“I sent it to three places,” Alejandro said. “Including the press.”
Detective Harris cursed.
Bellini grabbed Teresa by the arm. “Get the child. She is the only leverage left.”
Teresa pulled away. “No.”
Bellini slapped her.
She fell against a table of orchids.
Something inside me got hot.
The same feeling I had when the guard grabbed my arm in the study.
“Don’t hurt her!” I yelled at the screen.
Of course, they couldn’t hear me.
But Teresa stood up.
She looked at Bellini.
Then at Detective Harris.
Then at Alejandro.
And suddenly, she grabbed a heavy clay pot and smashed it over Detective Harris’s wrist.
The gun fell.
Alejandro moved faster than I thought sick people could move.
He knocked Bellini into the glass wall.
The greenhouse erupted into chaos.
Vincenzo’s team burst through the doors.
Gunshots cracked.
Glass shattered.
Mama covered my eyes again.
But through her fingers, I saw Alejandro fall.
“Mr. Moretti!” I cried.
The screen shook.
Then it cleared.
Alejandro was on the ground.
Bellini stood over him with a piece of broken glass.
He raised it.
And Teresa stepped in front of Alejandro.
The glass cut her shoulder instead.
Bellini froze.
Vincenzo tackled him from behind.
The old monitor went fuzzy.
Then the picture steadied.
Bellini was face-down on the floor, hands zip-tied behind his back.
Detective Harris was surrounded by guards.
Teresa was crying while Dr. Romano pressed cloth against her shoulder.
And Alejandro—
Alejandro looked up toward the camera.
Toward me.
He lifted one hand.
He was alive.
Mama began to cry.
Not sad crying.
The kind of crying people do when they have been holding their breath for too long.
I hugged her.
Then the gold lion on my necklace caught the light.
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And for the first time that night, I felt like maybe the bad people were finally afraid.
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