Chapter 6 #2
"Damian," she said quietly. "Do not make my career into another place where I have to fear what you will do for me."
The sentence was precise. It left no room for intention to hide behind outcome.
"I will not," I said.
This time I meant it.
When we returned to the estate, Roman was waiting. The dinner that followed was inevitable. But before we went inside, Elena stood at the foot of the steps with the lavender in her hands and looked at the house as though it might bite.
"What?" I asked.
"I am trying to remember that I am allowed to take up space here."
The words were quiet. I heard every one.
"You are," I said.
She nodded, though I knew she did not yet believe me.
Neither did I, entirely. The house had taught us all that space belonged to the person who could defend it.
Elena walked through the doors anyway.
At eight, we returned to the house with four boxes, two garment bags, and a bouquet of dried lavender that she insisted on carrying herself. Roman had waited for us in the dining room.
He stood at the head of a table designed for people who did not like one another enough to sit close.
Nico was halfway through a glass of wine.
Adrian had an unreadable expression. A woman I had not seen since the courthouse sat to Roman's right: my aunt Celia, my mother's older sister, in a severe black dress and diamonds the size of small coins.
"You decided to join us," Roman said.
"I decided my wife needed help," I said.
Celia looked Elena over with calm curiosity. "The Marchetti girl."
Elena set the lavender on the sideboard. "Elena."
"Of course."
I pulled out the chair beside mine for her. She sat without waiting for me to do it, which was good. She had been standing too still since we came back.
Dinner began with soup and silence. Roman asked Nico about a port contract. Adrian answered a call on mute and sent a message beneath the table. Celia spoke about a charity auction as though she had not noticed that Elena was in unfamiliar territory.
Then Roman set down his spoon.
"The press has the story," he said. "Councilman Cole has been asked for a comment."
Elena's face did not change. Her hand paused beside her glass.
"What did he say?" she asked.
Roman looked at his phone. "That his family wishes Miss Marchetti well during a difficult private matter."
A careful statement. A public retreat.
"How generous," Elena said.
Celia leaned forward. "You understand that your previous engagement creates complications. People will wonder whether this marriage was impulsive."
"People will wonder whatever they are paid to wonder," Elena said.
Nico hid a smile behind his glass.
Roman's gaze sharpened. "You will need to learn how to handle those questions."
"I handled them for a living before I met your family."
"Wedding guests are not prosecutors."
"No. But both think their feelings matter more than the person in front of them."
Adrian looked down to hide his reaction. Celia's lips pressed together.
Roman said, "This is not a game, Mrs. Voss."
The use of my name beside hers made something unwanted and heavy settle in my chest.
Elena sat straighter. "I know. It is my life."
Roman began to answer.
I spoke first. "That is enough."
My father's eyes moved to mine. "You are letting emotion interfere with discipline."
"No," I said. "I am telling you not to treat my wife like a correction you are entitled to make."
"Your wife? You barely know her."
"Then you know even less."
The room went quiet.
Roman had taught me not to raise my voice. It had been one of the few lessons from him I kept. People heard anger better when it did not need volume.
He looked at Elena, then at me. "This family cannot afford sentiment."
"It cannot afford to confuse cruelty with strength either."
Celia inhaled softly. Nico set down his wine.
For a moment, I thought Roman would stand. Instead he pushed his chair back just far enough to signal that dinner was over.
"We will discuss this later," he said.
"No," I said. "We will not."
He left the room.
Elena did not look at me immediately. Her attention stayed on the untouched soup in front of her.
"You did not have to do that," she said.
"Yes, I did."
"Why?"
The question should have been simple. It was not.
"Because he was wrong."
She nodded once. Then she stood. "I need a minute."
She left through the French doors into the dark garden.
I followed after a count of ten, not because I thought she needed saving but because I could not sit in that room and let the house swallow her whole.
She stood near the empty fountain with her arms crossed against the cold. The glass doors cast our reflections back at us. For a while, neither of us spoke.
"Your father hates me," she said.
"He does not know you."
"That does not answer the question."
"No. He does not hate you. He hates what he cannot control."
She looked at me. "That sounds familiar."
The hit landed cleanly.
"It does," I said.
The wind shifted her hair across her cheek. Instinct made me want to reach for it. I kept my hands at my sides.
"Why did you marry me, Damian?" she asked. "Not the strategic answer. Not the one about D'Angelo."
I looked at the dark windows of the house. Somewhere above us, the light in Roman's office came on. The building held every old ghost I had failed to escape.
"I do not know how to give you an answer that does not sound wrong," I said.
"Try anyway."
I thought of the Mercer wedding. Of her standing beneath a chandelier, not pretty in the way women were described by men who did not look past their mouths and bodies, but alive in a way I had not been prepared for.
I thought of the first surveillance photo of D'Angelo men outside her studio, and the anger that had moved through me so fast it had felt like recognition.
"I saw you before this," I said.
"You told me."
"I did not tell you that I kept seeing you afterward. At events. In reports. In rooms where you had no idea I was there."
Her face went still.
"That sounds worse."
"I know."
"Were you watching me?"
"Not in the way you mean. Not then."
"That does not make it better."
"No."
I had no defense that did not make me smaller in my own eyes.
"When the threat moved toward you, I knew enough about you to know you would never accept being hidden. I thought marriage would give you authority. A shield. I thought it would mean no one could treat you like a target without starting a war."
"And what did you get?"
The question was quiet.
The photograph of Elena’s apartment door sat on the screen between us like a threat that had learned how to smile.
Marcus had enlarged it until every detail was visible: the brass number on the frame, the narrow shadow where the door met the jamb, the reflection of a hallway light in the peephole.
The image had been taken from inside the building.
Not from the street. Not from a parking garage.
Someone had crossed the lobby, entered the elevator, and stood outside her door long enough to frame the shot.
I knew what that meant before Marcus finished explaining it.
“They had access,” I said.
“Yes.”
“List every person who entered the building in the last seventy-two hours.”
“We are pulling the cameras.”
“Not pulling them. Duplicate them. Send one set to Adrian and one offsite.”
Marcus nodded. “Already in motion.”
Elena stood at the far end of the security room with her arms folded. She had been silent since the message arrived. Silence suited her less than anger. Anger was a blade in her hand. Silence was the moment before she decided whether she needed it.
“I want to go home,” she said.
“No.”
Her gaze moved to me.
“Interesting choice of word.”
“You cannot go back tonight.”
“I have clothes there. Client files. My mother’s things.”
“Marcus’s team will retrieve them.”
“No.”
The word came sharper than mine had.
I took a breath before replying. “Elena, the person who took that photograph may have left something in the apartment. They may still be watching the building. You do not walk into a compromised location because you need a sweater.”
“You think that is what I mean?”
I did not answer.
She came closer to the monitors. “My life is in that apartment. Not the expensive or useful parts. The parts nobody else knows how to pack. The letter my mother wrote me when I graduated. The paperwork from the first wedding I planned on my own. A box under my bed with things I kept because I could not decide whether they mattered. You do not get to send someone into that space and call it protection.”
Her voice did not rise. That made every word worse.
Marcus found a reason to step away. The technicians did the same. Within seconds, the security room felt too large and too quiet.
“I will take you,” I said.
Elena looked at me as if I had spoken in another language.
“Not alone,” I added. “We go in with the team. You do not touch anything until they clear it. You tell me what belongs to you, and you pack it yourself.”
“You will let me?”
The question angered me, not at her. At the fact that I had made it reasonable.
“Yes,” I said.
The drive to her apartment took twelve minutes.
I had spent longer than that in armored cars before, but the distance felt different with Elena beside me.
She wore a black coat over a gray sweater, her hair tied back with a rubber band.
There was nothing dramatic about her. No fear performed for the people around us.
She stared out the window and held her phone in both hands.
“You can change your mind,” I said.
“So can you.”
“I am not going to.”
“Neither am I.”
The building superintendent was waiting in the lobby, pale and apologetic. Marcus’s team had already taken over the hall. A woman in forensic gloves dusted the elevator buttons while two men moved through Elena’s apartment with quiet efficiency.