Chapter 3: The Boy in the Garden
Julian crossed the office in four steps and looked through the window.
A young man stood at the edge of the garden path, hands loose at his sides, looking directly up at the light.
He was tall, dark-haired, and still.
He didn't look like someone who had wandered in by mistake.
He looked like someone who had been waiting a long time for this exact moment.
Julian turned back to Victoria.
"Did you bring him here?"
"I don't know who that is."
"You just looked straight at him."
Her chin lifted slightly.
"I looked at the garden."
Julian walked to the door and called down the hallway.
"Daniel.
The man in the garden.
Bring him in.
Nobody else moves until I say so."
Victoria took one step toward the desk.
Julian didn't look at her.
"Don't touch that document."
She stopped.
Two minutes passed.
The room was quiet except for the distant sound of the remaining guests in the east wing, glasses clinking, someone laughing at something that no longer felt connected to anything happening in this office.
Then footsteps on the stairs, and Daniel appeared in the doorway with the young man just behind him.
He was twenty-two, maybe twenty-three.
Dark eyes shaped exactly like Giovanni Ricci's in every photograph Julian had ever seen of his father as a young man.
The jaw.
The way he held his shoulders.
Julian had grown up with those photographs on the wall.
"My name is Elliot," the young man said.
He didn't look at Victoria.
He looked only at Julian.
"I've been trying to reach you for eight months."
"Through who?"
"Through a lawyer named Carver.
He said he forwarded my letters."
Julian turned to Daniel.
Daniel shook his head once.
No letters had ever arrived.
"Sit down," Julian said.
Elliot sat.
Victoria remained standing near the window, her clutch pressed against her side.
She had not moved toward the door.
Julian noted that.
She was staying because she needed to hear what Elliot said.
She needed to know how much he knew.
"Tell me about your mother," Julian said.
Elliot looked at his hands for a moment.
"Her name was Rosa Mendez.
She worked for your father from 1998 to 2001, as a private household nurse.
She and Giovanni — your father — they were close.
She didn't talk about it much when I was growing up.
But before she passed, three years ago, she told me everything." He paused.
"She told me he knew about me.
She told me he made arrangements."
"What kind of arrangements?"
"A trust.
My name was supposed to be in it from the beginning." Elliot reached into his jacket and placed a folded document on the desk beside the unsigned authorization.
"This is the original.
The one your father's attorney filed in 2002.
Before someone changed it."
Julian unfolded it slowly.
The language was formal, the typeface old, but the structure was clear.
Elliot Ricci, natural son of Giovanni Ricci.
Named beneficiary.
Entitled to an equal share.
The copy in the trust records that Julian had reviewed earlier listed no such name.
The page had been replaced.
Cleanly, carefully, and at some point in the last four years — after Giovanni's death, when no one would think to check.
Julian set the document down.
He didn't look at Victoria yet.
"Why didn't you come forward sooner?"
"I tried.
The lawyer Carver stopped returning my calls after the second month.
Then someone broke into my apartment." Elliot's voice stayed level, but his hands tightened on his knees.
"Nothing was taken.
But my copy of this document was moved.
They put it back in a different drawer.
They wanted me to know they'd been there."
Victoria made a small sound — the beginning of a word she didn't finish.
Julian turned to face her.
"You changed the beneficiary page."
"That's a serious accusation."
"It's a serious document." He picked up Elliot's original.
"Who told you about Elliot?"
"I want to call my attorney."
"You're in my house." Julian's voice didn't rise.
It never needed to.
"You can call anyone you want in about ten minutes.
Right now, I'm asking you a question."
Her eyes moved to the unsigned authorization on the desk.
Something shifted in her expression — the calculation behind the grace, finally visible.
She had spent four years working toward this document.
She was not going to let it dissolve in one conversation.
"Michael found out," she said finally.
"Two years ago.
He came to me.
He said if we didn't act, everything your father built would go to a stranger."
"Elliot isn't a stranger.
He's my brother."
The word landed in the room like something dropped from a height.
Elliot looked up.
Victoria's composure cracked at the edges — just at the edges — and then she pulled it back together.
She was very good at that.
"Your father made a mistake," she said quietly.
"I was protecting what belongs to you.
To the family."
Julian looked at her for a long moment.
Then he picked up the unsigned authorization and tore it evenly down the center.
Victoria's breath caught.
"Daniel," Julian said.
"Where is Michael right now?"
Daniel checked his phone.
His face changed.
"He left the property twenty minutes ago, sir.
His car is gone.
And —" Daniel looked up.
"Harold Kent's personal vehicle left at the same time."
Victoria's hand finally released her clutch.
It dropped to her side.
Julian looked at the torn document on the desk, then at Elliot, then at the window where the garden was now empty and dark.
May you like
Somewhere out there, Michael Ricci and Harold Kent were running.
And Julian had not yet decided how far he would let them get.
