Chapter 5 - The Buried Secret
Mr. Moretti froze. The muscles in his neck tightened instantly. "Dig a hole for what?"
Madison began to cry openly, her chest heaving with the weight of the massive secret she had been carrying all day.
"For a box, sir," Madison sobbed. "A heavy, locked metal box. She brought it out to the greenhouse wrapped in a black trash bag. She told me to dig a hole under the old rose bushes and bury it deep."
"Why did she choke you?" Mr. Moretti asked, his voice dropping to a terrifying whisper.
"Because the bag ripped," Madison cried. "The box fell out into the dirt, and the lock broke open. I saw what was inside. When she realized I saw it, she lost her mind. She grabbed me by the throat and slammed me against the glass wall. She squeezed until I almost passed out, and told me that if I ever breathed a word of it to you, she would destroy my life."
Mr. Moretti slowly pushed himself off the edge of the desk. His face was a mask of cold, calculated fury. He had let Victoria manage the estate out of respect for his late wife. He had trusted her.
"What was in the box, Madison?" Mr. Moretti demanded softly.
Madison wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, looking up at the billionaire.
"It was full of medical vials, sir," Madison whispered. "Dozens of them. And a stack of forged pharmacy receipts. The labels on the vials... they were the exact same heart medications your wife was taking before she died. But the receipts showed Victoria bought them under a fake name, and they were filled with a high-dose blood thinner."
The room went completely, utterly silent. You could hear the antique grandfather clock ticking in the corner.
Mr. Moretti stopped breathing. His blood turned to absolute ice.
Three years ago, his wife had died of a sudden, catastrophic, unexplained hemorrhage. The doctors had called it a tragic, unavoidable medical anomaly.
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But it wasn't an anomaly. It was murder.
👉 How will the devastated billionaire confront the monster sitting at his dining table?
