Chapter 11 - The Gatekeeper’s Choice
The breeze off the Mediterranean didn't warm the air between us. It just carried the faint scent of diesel, sea salt, and unresolved rage.
I stood at the edge of the stone balustrade, my fingers dug into the cold limestone. Down below, Dante Moretti stood beside the vintage Mercedes, his hands resting casually inside the pockets of his dark cashmere coat. He looked leaner than he had in New York. The sharp planes of his cheekbones were harsher, shadowed by a faint layer of stubble that the Don of the Five Boroughs would never have allowed a barber to overlook.
He hadn’t looked up at me with demand. He was looking at me with patience. And that, more than any raised weapon or shouting crew, terrified me. Dante Moretti did not wait for anyone.
"Elena?" Marco’s voice cut through the hum of the cicadas in the olive grove. "The gate has a hydraulic latch. One click from this remote and the security pins drop. He can wait out there until the Italian sun turns his coat gray, or I can tell him to turn the car around."
I looked down at the velvet box in my palm. The velvet was worn at the corners from the sheer number of times it had crossed an ocean. Five carats of flawless ice that his mother had claimed was stolen from the Moretti family vault.
"Let him in," I said.
Marco frowned, his dark eyes narrowing. "You spent four months scrubbing his name out of your skin, Elena. You really want him tracking New York mud onto this terrace?"
"He didn't bring an army, Marco. If he wanted to take me, he wouldn't be standing alone at the gate like a suitor." I turned my head, meeting Marco’s gaze. "Let him drive up. But leave the front doors open. And keep your piece in your shoulder holster, not on the side table. We don't pretend we're civilized, but we don't act frightened either."
Marco hesitated, then pressed the black toggle on the small remote.
A quarter-mile down the slope, the heavy wrought-iron gates groaned and swung inward. Dante didn't rush. He didn't slam the car door or gun the engine. He walked back to the driver's side, slid behind the wheel, and drove the Mercedes up the winding gravel path at twenty miles an hour, his headlights cutting through the silver shade of the olive trees.
I walked back to the wrought-iron table and sat down. I picked up my porcelain cup, finding the black espresso lukewarm, but I swallowed it anyway. Bitterness was a familiar taste; it kept my pulse steady.
The tires crunched against the terrace gravel. The engine died with a low shudder.
The driver's door opened, and Dante stepped out.
He didn't wear sunglasses. His slate-gray eyes swept the perimeter first—the terrace, the high walls of the villa, the roofline where he undoubtedly suspected Marco had a rifle stashed—before his focus locked directly onto me.
"You've gained color," he said. His voice was lower than I remembered, rough around the edges, like crushed stone. "The sun suits you, Elena."
"The distance suits me better," I replied, leaning back against the iron chair, keeping my hands resting loosely in my lap. "What are you doing in Amalfi, Dante?"
He took three slow steps forward, stopping right at the edge of the terrace tiles where the stone met the manicured gravel. He didn't cross the invisible boundary line.
"You didn't answer my letters," he said.
"I didn't open them."
"You kept the ring."
"I kept an expensive paperweight," I countered smoothly. "Every time it arrives in the mail, Marco uses it to weigh down the harbor shipping manifests. It’s practical."
A ghost of a smirk touched the corner of his lips, but it was hollow, lacking the predatory arrogance he used to wear like armor in Manhattan. "You always were bad at lying to me."
"And you were always bad at defending me when it mattered."
The words landed like a whip across bare skin. The faint amusement drained from his face instantly. Dante stepped across the line of tile, his jaw tightening until the muscle ticked beneath his skin.
"That's why I'm here," he said quietly. "Not to drag you back. Not to order you around. But because you left a room full of people who thought they owned you, and you left me standing in the ashes of what I let happen."
"You didn't let it happen, Dante," I said, my voice dropping to a knife-edge whisper. "You sat at the head of that table. Your mother threw the accusation. Your cousin called me a common thief. And you sat there, cutting your steak, waiting to see if I would beg."
"I was waiting to see who drew their knives first," he snapped, taking another step closer, his eyes burning into mine. "I needed them all in the open!"
"And while you were hunting wolves," I said, standing up so fast the wrought-iron chair scraped against the stone with a screech, "you let them chew on my throat."
We stood three feet apart, the Mediterranean sea roaring softly against the cliffs hundreds of feet below us.
Behind me, Marco stepped out of the shadow of the doorway, his hand resting casually inside his jacket. Dante didn't even glance at him. His eyes never left mine.
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"I didn't come here to make excuses," Dante said, his voice dropping into that deadly, intimate register that used to make my knees weak. "I came to show you the bodies."
***
