Chapter Thirteen The First Threat
It ended, that fragile softness, on a Tuesday morning three weeks later, when Elena found a single white lily on the doorstep of the east wing, no card attached, its stem wrapped in a black ribbon.
She didn't think much of it until she saw Marco's face when she showed it to him — the way all the color drained out of his usually impassive features.
"Signora, please go inside," he said, already reaching for his phone. "Now, please."
Dante arrived home within the hour, and Elena had never seen him move the way he moved through the house that afternoon — fast, silent, every line of him coiled tight with a fury she hadn't yet witnessed.
He took the lily from her hands, studied the ribbon, and his expression went so cold and so still that Elena felt, for the first time since the wedding, genuinely afraid of him.
"Where was this?" His voice had dropped to something barely above a whisper, which was somehow far worse than shouting.
"The doorstep. This morning."
"Did you see anyone? A car, a person, anything?"
"No. Dante, you're scaring me."
That seemed to reach him. He set the lily down on the hall table with exaggerated care, as though it might detonate, and turned to face her fully, and for a moment the mask cracked entirely, revealing something underneath that looked, to Elena's shock, like fear.
"White lilies with black ribbon," he said quietly, "are a message.
A very old one, in our world. It means someone intends to bury a member of my family.
" His hand came up, cupped her jaw, thumb tracing her cheekbone with a tenderness completely at odds with the violence simmering just beneath his composure.
"And it was left on your doorstep, Elena. Not mine. Yours."
"The Calvettis?"
"Perhaps. Perhaps someone else entirely, using this as an opportunity.
" His jaw worked. "I told you, the day we married, that I wouldn't let anyone take something of mine to make a point.
I meant it then. I mean it a thousand times more now.
" His forehead dropped to hers, and for the first time, Elena felt him tremble — just slightly, just once.
"I have buried men who threatened far less than this.
I will burn this city down before I let anyone touch you. "
"I believe you," she whispered, and found, terrifyingly, that she meant it completely.
He kissed her then — fierce, almost desperate, nothing gentle in it at all — and Elena understood, in that moment, that whatever safety she'd imagined the walls of Larkspur Row provided had always been an illusion. The debt had bought her a husband. It had not, apparently, bought her peace.