It was sweet in Dante’s domineering way.
I’d opened my mouth to argue with him as he pushed my hair from my face, but I fell asleep before I could figure out what to say.
Six hours later, when I woke, the feeling had started in my chest.
There was no reason for it yet.
We were on our way to start a life in Costa Rica. Dante had even bought me a Spanish phrase book from a tourist stand in Naples.
But something felt off.
I used the bathroom to splash cold water on my face, surprised when I look in the mirror to see how much I’d changed during my three weeks in Italy. My hair was threaded with gold from the sun, my skin warmed with a tan. But it was my eyes that seemed so very different.
I blinked at the dark gray orbs, noting the smile lines pressed to their corners, the wakefulness of my expression. In New York, I’d been so unhappy and constantly exhausted from work and spiritual melancholy that it had reflected in my face in a way I hadn’t even noticed at the time. My eyes were clear of dark circles and bags, my pale, indoors-only skin was rich with color and a healthy flush, my cheeks weren’t as gaunt and my hair looked shockingly nice in its natural wavy state.
I was even wearing something different than my usual neutral suits and silk blouses. The Dolce & Gabbana dress was cut simply, sleeves with an A-line skirt but it had a bold pattern of bright flowers I’d chosen because it reminded me of Italy and I wanted to take a piece of that with me when we left.
I looked like a new woman as much as I felt like one inside my soul.
My smile hooked one cheek and then the other until it dominated my entire face.
Momentarily, I forgot about the tight feeling in my chest and exited the bathroom into the hallway leading to the main seating area of the plane.
“You should tell her.”
I froze.
“Stai zitto,” Dante ordered blandly.
Shut up.
“No,” Frankie insisted. “You’re being a stronzo so I won’t shut up. This is the women you just made your wife, D. You exchanged fede. You know what that means?”
“I may not have been born in Italy, but I speak the language better than you,” he countered, still mild, but with a current of agitation threading through his tone.
“It means ‘faith’,” Frankie continued, unperturbed. “Those rings are a symbol of faith in each other and your relationship. Don’t make her doubt it when you’ve just begun. She’s stubborn, she might not forgive you.”
There was noise like someone moving and then Dante’s voice, all passivity lost. “You think you know her better than I do?”
“I think I know you better than you do sometimes. You’re setting yourself up for failure like some goddamn martyr.”
“Basta!” Dante snapped.
Enough.
My heart was a lead weight in my belly as I pressed myself against the wall and tried to breath.
What the hell were they keeping from me?
After Cosima’s reveal about Salvatore being her father, I truly hadn’t thought Dante would lie to me again, even by omission.
Where was hard-hearted, skeptical Elena?
Had she been buried alive by love?
I sucked in a deep lungful of recycled plane air and moved into the living area.
Neither men looked up from their work.
I moved to Dante who sat in a big chair facing the back of the plane working on his computer. Without asking, I moved the laptop, closing the screen and placing it on the table side him. He watched me with curiously flat eyes as I got into his lap and pressed my nose to his throat.
His citrus and musk scent would forever remind me of Italy now and that wasn’t a bad thing.
“Did you sleep well?”
“No, I had bad dreams.”
I took his hand in both of mine, fiddling with the wide gold wedding band. It was hard to believe it was there because of me. Because he was my husband. It made the idea of his secret keeping all the more agonizing.
“What were you and Frankie talking about just now?”
Dante stiffened marginally. If I hadn’t been sitting in his lap, I wouldn’t have noticed.
Which was why I was there.
The best lie detector was my body against his. He could lie to me verbally, but physically our bodies shared the same language and it would be nearly impossible to hide.
“Nothing important.”
“Hmmm.” I continued to play with his wedding ring. “I think Zacero would be a good place to settle in Costa Rica. It’s not very touristic and it’s in the mountains where it’s cooler. I thought it might also remind us of Villa Rosa.”
“Se vuoi.”
If you want.
“Dante.” I gave up my act and sat straighter in his lap. “What the hell is going on?”
“Well, we’re currently flying over the Atlantic.”
“Don’t be a sputasentenze,” I demanded. A smartass. “Frankie was trying to get you to tell me something. What’s going on?”
The was something wrong in his eyes. They weren’t deep and sparkling as the night’s sky, but flat, almost inanimate like black marbles.
“Frankie was being dramatic.”
“You’re being robotic. What is going on? Dante, I’m your wife. Does that mean nothing to you?”
Something cracked in that cold gaze, fire blazing through the fissure. “Don’t be stupida. Of course, it means everything to me. You are the motivation behind every decision I make, Elena.”
“Then explain this one to me.”
He looked out the oval window at the pale sky. When we’d left Naples, it had been early morning but we were going back in time so time seemed to freeze in place.
“Capo,” I called to him, using my hands on both cheeks to twisted his head to face me again. “You and I are a team. Please, tell me because if something is wrong, I can help.”
The hard set of his ruddy mouth softened, his eyes a tender caress as they swept over my face. “Lottatrice mia, always so ready to fight for me.”
“Sempre,” I agreed.
Always.
His eyes flashed and the last of his reticence escaped him on a sigh. I echoed him when his entire body shifted around mine, finally holding me the way I’d wanted him to, the way he usually did.
“I made a decision.”
That foreboding feeling grew like thorns inside my lungs.
“We’re going back to New York.”
I blinked, a little stunned by his words.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go back. Marco was either the mole or a friend in a coma that needed our support. Chen and Jacopo had been dealing with the di Carlo attacks all alone because Adriano was still recovering. Bambi and Aurora weren’t answering my calls or Facetime attempts anymore.
Mama was in New York and Beau.
My job.
Which was, apparently, waiting for me should I ever return.
But there was one solid, unconquerable reason we couldn’t go back to New York.
Dante would go to prison as soon as they discovered he’d returned to the country.
He watched my thoughts work behind my eyes, his own face set like stone.
It made him look like Alexander. Terrifyingly cold.
“And what’s your plan? Stay locked up somewhere like you’re on house arrest again, because the moment some reports that you’re back in the country, they’ll hunt you down and take you straight to jail?”