Chapter 3
He gripped the marble island and lowered himself onto a stool.
Pain crossed his face as he shifted his weight.
Naya returned with the white plastic medical kit and placed it on the counter.
“Remove the shirt.”
Dante attempted the buttons with his right hand.
His fingers repeatedly slipped from the small discs.
He cursed.
Naya watched for 5 seconds before entering his space, pushing his hand aside, and opening the remaining buttons herself.
Her knuckles touched the hot, perspiring skin of his chest.
Dante inhaled sharply.
Naya did not look at him.
She removed the damaged shirt from his shoulder.
A deep knife wound crossed the left bicep.
Blood continued moving slowly from the jagged edges.
“It did not strike an artery.”
Naya opened iodine.
“This will burn.”
She poured it into the wound.
Dante’s jaw closed hard enough to make a sound.
The muscles and veins in his neck became prominent.
He remained silent, although his breathing accelerated.
Naya used gauze to remove the excess blood.
Her movements were clinical and efficient, without hesitation or tenderness.
“It was an ambush in the South End,” Dante said.
He watched the top of her head.
He never discussed business with her.
“Thomas was shot in the leg. We handled it, but—”
Dante stopped.
He waited for a response, perhaps a gasp or a question about whether he was safe.
“Keep the arm still.”
Naya wrapped the bicep tightly with clean bandages and pulled the material across the wound.
Dante studied her.
Her hair was disordered.
Soil remained beneath her fingernails.
She smelled of rain and basic soap rather than the vanilla perfume he had purchased in Paris.
She seemed like a stranger.
“You did not ask whether I was all right.”
His voice sounded rough and confused.
Naya secured the bandage.
Then she lifted the ruined shirt with 2 fingers, dropped it into the garbage, and returned the supplies to the box.
“You entered under your own power. You are speaking.”
She closed the kit.
“You’re fine.”
“I could have died tonight.”
It did not sound like a request for sympathy.
It sounded accusatory.
Naya looked at him.
Her expression was empty.
There was no fear, pity, or warmth.
Only the neutral gaze of someone closing a cash register.
“If you had died, I assume Thomas or 1 of the attorneys would have called me in the morning to complete the paperwork.”
Dante flinched.
The movement was small, but it was the most honest response Naya had ever seen from him.
Color left his face beneath the fluorescent light.
She picked up the medical kit.
“Keep the bandage dry for 24 hours.”
Naya turned.
“Good night, Dante.”
She left him alone inside the dark kitchen with his blood and the broken glass.
The breaking point arrived on a Thursday afternoon beneath oppressive July heat.
Naya knelt inside the garden on a foam pad and attacked the root system of a rotting hydrangea with a small iron trowel.
Perspiration entered the collar of her shirt.
Her scratched arms and aching muscles were covered in soil.
It felt like progress.
Gravel moved behind her.
Naya continued digging.
The trowel struck a thick root.
She pushed deeper and pulled.
“Stop.”
Dante’s voice carried across the garden.
Naya ignored him.
She used her weight against the dead wood.
A shadow covered her.
A calloused hand closed around her wrist and forced her arm upward, stopping the trowel in the middle of its movement.
Naya released the tool.
She stood slowly and removed loose soil from her knees.
Her eyes moved from the hand around her wrist to Dante’s face.
He looked as though he had not slept for 1 week.
His eyes were bloodshot and surrounded by dark circles. His jaw was so tight that she could hear his teeth grinding.
He wore suit trousers with his shirt sleeves rolled back, exposing the edge of the white bandage she had applied.
“I said stop.”
His chest moved heavily.
“What are you doing? You look homeless.”
“I’m redesigning the garden.”
Naya’s voice remained calm.
“I told you weeks ago.”
“You are not redesigning anything. You are destroying it.”
Dante released her wrist and put 1 hand through his hair.
Stale tobacco and anxiety surrounded him.
“You have been destroying things for 1 month.”
His voice became sharper.
“You don’t speak to me. You don’t look at me. You flinch when I enter a room.”
“I do not flinch.”
“You freeze.”
Dante’s eyes darkened.
“That is worse.”
He moved closer.
“You look at me like I’m a tax collector.”
Naya crossed her arms.
“Is there a problem with my conduct?”
She held his gaze.
“Have I embarrassed you publicly? Failed to attend an event? Denied your marital rights?”
The words tasted like ash, but she delivered them evenly.
Dante recoiled.
“Do not speak that way.”
“Accurately?”
“What happened to you?”
Anger broke and exposed desperation inside his voice.
Dante forced her backward toward the damaged hydrangea.
“Where is my wife?”
His expression tightened.
“Where is the woman who learned my mother’s risotto recipe, ironed my shirts, and looked at me as if I mattered?”
Naya stared.
The audacity created a cold sensation along her spine.
He missed the worship.
Dante missed the eager woman who fed his pride.
He did not miss Naya.
He missed the reflection she once provided.
“She realized she was working too hard for someone who could not see her.”
“What does that mean?”
Dante seized her shoulders.
His fingers pressed painfully into her collarbones.
“Tell me what I did. Tell me what Donahue said.”
His voice became urgent.
“Whatever it is, I’ll correct it. I’ll purchase anything you want. A trip to Milan. A new vehicle.”
He searched her face.
“Stop behaving as though you’re dead.”
Naya looked at his hands.
She remembered the pressure of the silver tray against her hip and the sulfur from the match beyond the study door.
“I do not want a vehicle.”
Her eyes met his.
“You cannot repair this.”
“Why?”
“Because you are keeping me compliant.”
The words settled between them with exact weight.
Dante stopped breathing.
His pupils expanded.
The grip on her shoulders loosened slightly but did not disappear.
Naya allowed him to look into the cold emptiness inside her.
“I am a transaction.”
Her voice remained soft.
“My father gave you port access, and you allowed him to live.”
She continued.
“I was a necessary piece of paperwork. You do not care whether I’m a saint.”
Naya held his gaze.
“I’m an incubator.”
Dante’s mouth opened.
He looked as though she had pushed the trowel into his abdomen.
Blood left his face.
He stepped backward, and his arms fell to his sides.
“Naya.”
The name left him weakly.
“I’m doing exactly what you wanted.”
Her voice found a terrible rhythm.
Naya advanced and forced him another step backward through the soil.
“I’m remaining in the east wing and rotting quietly.”
Her eyes did not leave his.
“I tolerate you until the line is secure.”
The corner of her mouth moved without humor.
“Although our current sleeping arrangement may delay your schedule.”
“You heard me.”
Dante looked at her as though she were an apparition.
His eyes searched the garden, perhaps attempting to find Thomas and reconstruct the past.
“Inside the study. It was raining.”
Naya’s expression became strange and still.
“Blood washes out of silk with cold water and salt.”
Her voice lowered.
“Your voice also drops an octave when you lie.”
She paused.
“You were not lying that night, were you?”
Dante’s face tightened.
“You told the truth to the wrong person.”
“Naya, listen. You do not understand.”
Panic entered his voice.
“That was talk. It was business.”
The controlled criminal leader reached toward her with empty hands while she stepped back.
“The Commission searches for weakness. If they believed I was becoming soft or attached to a bride accepted for a debt—”
“I don’t care.”
The 3 words ended his explanation.
Dante became silent.
He stood inside the damaged garden surrounded by the consequences of his own arrogance.
“I don’t care about the Commission or your reputation.”
Naya’s voice became a whisper.
“I cared about you.”
She looked directly at him.
“You killed it before it had an opportunity to live.”
Naya turned away.
She lifted her canvas gloves from the soil, struck the dirt from them against her jeans, and returned to the house.
Dante remained beneath the heat, surrounded by the dead roots he had instructed her not to remove.
He did not come home for 3 days.
The estate seemed to breathe without him.
The pressure that normally traveled from Dante into every corner of the ceilings disappeared.
A hollow quiet remained.
Naya spent the days outside.
She removed the remaining dead roots, turned the soil until it became dark and rich, and planted nothing.
She liked the waiting earth.
It required nothing.
May you like
Dante returned on Tuesday afternoon.
Heat radiated from the stone patio.
