Page 93 of Iron Roses

Lorenzo exhales. “I’ll help.”

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Three days after Elaria was taken, I decide it’s time to see Giovanna.

The garden is quiet in the way old places are—like it’s learned how to hush itself. The trees have stilled. No birds sing.Only the breath of wind threading between stone and grass, soft enough to miss if you’re not listening.

I follow the path out of habit. My boots trace the old gravel as if they remember the way better than I do.

The mausoleum waits at the edge. Pale marble dulled by weather and years. The Fontanesi name is carved deep into its arch, but time has dimmed its pride. Rain’s left its trace in long, tired streaks. Even the light seems reluctant to touch the stone.

Two graves lie in the grass before the threshold.Perfectly aligned. Identical headstones.

Giovanna Lucia Fontanesi

1987 – 2011

I crouch.

The flowers crinkle in my hand—white lilies, same as she used to pluck from the villa’s courtyard, the ones she pressed between book pages like secrets. I place them just beneath her name. The stems brush my knuckles. Damp soil seeps through the knees of my trousers.

I sit. The grass is wet

It bleeds through the fabric, through skin, into the bones.

I lean forward until my forehead rests against the gravestone.

The marble is cold. And something inside me loosens.

My lungs give in first. Then the tendons in my back. My jaw stays locked. Behind my eyes—

The flicker of memory.

Her voice, quiet. A murmur half-stolen by sleep.

"I took you from her. Shame. You would’ve loved her."

She’d been curled against me, her breath warm beneath my collarbone. Fingers tracing the hem of my shirt. My hand had stilled on her hip.

"It’s you I’ve always wanted," I said.

Her smile hadn’t quite reached her mouth. But her thumb had pressed lightly against the hollow of my throat, as if to still something.

"If one day I’m not here," she whispered, "I hope you both find your way to each other."

The room had been dim. Her eyes are darker still.

The chill of the stone creeps up my spine. I don’t move. The moss clings to my trousers. My hand curls into the earth beside me.

They gave me a living daughter. And I returned a corpse. How could I face them? I couldn’t even attend her burial. Nor could I come visiting. I was too ashamed of my own weakness.

Now the other daughter is missing. And I sit here. With ghosts and lilies.

Because I don’t know where else to go.

We searched everywhere. Fausto’s estate was empty. I mean completely empty. The security system’s down, the cellar’s cleared, his staff’s gone. Not a single trace. It’s like he vanished on purpose.

We checked every port contact. Every airline manifest we had ties to. There’s no record of her. Of him. Of anyone connected

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