CHAPTER NINE
Donum Silentii
Netflix needs to drop a series about prison wives ASAP #Dantezetes (@deisebloombastic)
I’d been staring at the box for half an hour, completely unsure what to do with it. Something inside me was screaming to find out what was in there, even though I knew accepting gifts was completely against my profession’s code of ethics—the kind of thing that didn’t even need to be spelled out.
I swirled the drink in my glass—a potent mix of whiskey, lemon, and honey. The wind rustled the tree outside my window, and
“You know what? I can’t not know.” I set aside the file folders and glass, clearing space on the table for the box. It was relatively simple—black with a black bow on top, adorned with delicate dried flowers in deep crimson. I slid my fingers along the ribbon and tugged at the end.
When I removed the lid, the contents were covered with tissue paper, and resting on top was an envelope—the same deep crimson as the dried flowers—with my name handwritten across it.
I pulled out the contents and confirmed it was a letter from Dante.
But it wasn’t his distinctive handwriting that caught my attention.
It was the aroma that immediately wafted from the paper.
Intense, woody, and sensual. Like the scent of someone whose heart runs on passion and chaos.
I closed my eyes, breathing it in again.
I set the letter aside to open the tissue paper. Beneath it was a protective frame around a glass dome. I lifted it out carefully and set it on the table. The base was black. The crystal was thick and solid. But what captivated me was the rose in the center.
It wasn’t exactly black, but not quite red either. The texture was so velvety it seemed to blur at the edges. The dark petals folded into waves. On the thorny stem, the tips looked almost lethal—as if the dome was the only thing keeping it from succumbing to its own nature. It was hypnotic.
Just like Dante himself.
My phone rang, and for a second I thought it might be him. My entire body froze at the possibility. My breath quickened, and it took a moment to steady itself even after I saw Celie’s name on the screen.
“Sorry about the hour. I needed to know how your father reacted,” Celie said the moment I answered. I grabbed the envelope and the glass and headed upstairs to the bedroom.
“Not as bad as I expected,” I said, downplaying it. The truth was, the moment I arrived for dinner, I heard him screaming at William in the office, going on about how I always loved defying him and how I was sealing my own doom with this case.
“Ah…” she sighed. “Sorry, I panicked thinking he’d convince you to back out. That would ruin our firm.”
“I—” Shit. I stared at the letter. “I wouldn’t back out.”
Celie cheered. I went to the closet and changed into sweats and a t-shirt.
“So can I open the champagne to celebrate with George?” Her husband was a sweetheart. A surgeon at Heritage Med.
“Sure, Celie. If you promise to have one chilling for me when I finally get to see the lake house.” I propped the phone on the vanity while I braided my hair.
“George, bring the glasses!” Celie shouted. “You’re coming next week, right? I’ll even promise two bottles, with that fat check we got.”
“Check?” I asked, confused.
“Yes. It arrived today right after you left. There was also an invitation from the Marino family. A fancy dinner tomorrow. Sounds pretty nice.”
“We can’t go.”
“I know. I know.”
“But we can spend the check,” I added.
“Now that’s more like it.” Celie’s voice grew distant. “I need to go. George is in the bathtub.”
“Spare me, Celie.”
After we hung up, I took the last sip from my glass and went to bed. The envelope lying there wouldn’t let me forget what had been burning through my mind.
This case—and this heat in my gut every time I thought about Dante—seemed completely wrong. But instead of running from the fire, I was standing there watching the flame trace a thin line toward a barrel of fuel.
My finger slipped inside the envelope and pulled out the contents. A cream-colored sheet with the Marino family crest. Dante’s elegant script, with my name at the top.
Helena.
Do you know what makes something as rare as the black roses of Halfeti so beautiful?
Their ephemerality. These roses grow in only one place in the world, on the banks of a river that darkens everything it touches.
Once their velvety petals bloom, the curved black edges seem to hide a secret.
This is not a flower that blooms lightly, but one that resists—as if aware of its own rarity and determined not to share its true beauty with the entire world.
Reserving itself only for those who deserve it.
The color shifts depending on how you look at it: a deep wine in sunlight, but in shadow, it looks like freshly spilled black ink. The thorns on its stem seem like a warning. A brutal reminder of its contrast. Of its complexity.
But unlike what many might think, placing this beautiful black rose under a glass dome doesn’t mean control. I like to think of it as stopping time. Preventing time from consuming its beauty. Manipulating the clock to prolong the intense sensation of possessing it.
Even if you don’t touch it, don’t feel it. Or can’t actually have it.
Because touching it can darken its petals, Helena.
But not touching it can consume you.
D.
Dante’s words were so dense and controlled, as if he were bending me to his will. Dante wasn’t just a cruel, dangerous killer. His storytelling was intense. His presence was lethal. And he seemed completely aware of it. Dangerously in control.