Chapter 11 - The Letter Beneath the Wedding FlowersThree weeks after Rosa Bennett became Rosa Falcone, someone left a dead white rose on Carmela’s grave.
Dante found it at four o’clock.
That detail bothered him more than the flower.
Almost nobody outside the household knew about four o’clock.
For years, it had been the hour of Carmela’s death, the hour Dante walked the marble corridor alone, the hour the entire estate learned to become silent.
Now four o’clock belonged to laughter.
Usually.
That afternoon Sophia was at Daniel’s apartment helping him make what she called “real spaghetti,” which apparently meant putting enough cheese on pasta to offend Italy. Rosa had gone into Manhattan with Marina to choose furniture for the charitable housing foundation she wanted to establish.
Dante had gone to the family cemetery alone.
He carried fresh white roses.
Carmela had loved them.
He stopped beside the grave.
One rose was already there.
Dead.
Brown around the edges.
Tied around its stem was a black ribbon.
Dante’s expression changed.
He crouched.
A folded piece of paper rested beneath the flower.
Three words had been written across it.
YOU MISSED ONE.
Dante did not touch it.
He called Matteo Rinaldi, his security chief.
Ten minutes later, the cemetery was locked down.
No fingerprints.
No useful tire tracks.
No cameras had captured anyone approaching the grave.
Which meant whoever had done it knew where the cameras were.
Dante stared at the message.
Victor was in federal prison.
His organization had collapsed.
Men who once depended on Falcone protection had either disappeared, cooperated, or discovered respectable professions with remarkable speed.
Dante had spent more than a year dismantling everything Carmela had died trying to expose.
He had believed it was finished.
Apparently someone disagreed.
That evening Rosa noticed his silence before dinner.
She had changed out of her maid’s uniform forever months ago, yet sometimes Dante still caught himself remembering the woman who had once tried so hard not to be noticed.
Tonight she wore a loose cream sweater and black pants.
Sophia had chosen the earrings.
One was silver.
One was gold.
Rosa had been forbidden to fix them.
“You’re doing it again,” she said.
Dante looked up.
“Doing what?”
“Going somewhere terrible in your head and forgetting your face comes with you.”
“I have no idea what that means.”
“It means your eyebrows are threatening the furniture.”
Sophia looked at him from across the table.
“They are.”
Dante glanced at her.
“You’re supposed to be eating.”
“I am.”
“You have been holding the same carrot for four minutes.”
Sophia looked at the carrot.
“I’m thinking about it.”
Daniel hid a smile behind his glass.
Dante had invited him to dinner because Sophia had spent the afternoon with him.
A year earlier, the idea would have been unbearable.
Now it was merely complicated.
Complicated, Dante had learned, was survivable.
Rosa touched his wrist.
“What happened?”
Dante looked toward Sophia.
Rosa understood immediately.
“After dinner.”
Sophia narrowed her eyes.
“That means secret.”
“It means grown-up conversation,” Rosa said.
“Same thing.”
After Sophia was upstairs, Dante placed the photograph of the dead rose and message on his desk.
Daniel went pale.
Rosa noticed.
“You recognize it.”
Daniel looked at Dante.
“No.”
“That wasn’t convincing,” Dante said.
Daniel exhaled.
“The ribbon.”
“What about it?”
Daniel picked up the photograph.
“Victor’s people used black ribbon years ago.”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“As what?”
“A warning.”
Rosa folded her arms.
“I thought Victor’s people were gone.”
“So did I.”
Daniel stared at the photograph.
Then he said something Dante did not expect.
“There was another man.”
Silence.
Dante looked at him.
“What man?”
“When Carmela and I were investigating Victor, we found payments going somewhere we couldn’t trace. Victor wasn’t keeping all the money.”
“Why am I hearing this now?”
“Because Carmela believed the second account might have been fake.”
“Did you?”
Daniel hesitated.
“No.”
Dante stood.
“You let me believe Victor was the end of it.”
“I had no proof.”
“You had suspicion.”
“And what would you have done with suspicion back then?”
Dante said nothing.
Daniel gave him a tired look.
“Exactly.”
Rosa stepped between the men before history could repeat itself.
“What do you know?”
Daniel rubbed his jaw.
“Only a name.”
Dante waited.
“Elias Voss.”
Dante’s expression did not change.
That frightened Rosa.
“You know him.”
“Everyone in my old world knew him.”
“Who is he?”
Dante walked toward the window.
“Victor was ambitious.”
He looked into the darkness beyond the estate.
“Elias Voss was patient.”
Daniel nodded.
“He financed organizations without appearing inside them. Weapons, shell corporations, political protection. Victor may have been building an empire.”
Dante turned.
“But Voss would have been buying it.”
Rosa felt cold.
“Where is he?”
“Nobody knows,” Dante said.
A sound came from the doorway.
All three adults turned.
Sophia stood there in purple pajamas.
Dante frowned.
“You’re supposed to be asleep.”
“I need water.”
“There is water beside your bed.”
“I need different water.”
Rosa almost smiled.
Then Sophia noticed the photograph.
Her expression changed.
“That flower.”
Dante became still.
“What about it?”
Sophia walked closer.
“I saw one.”
Rosa crouched.
“Where?”
Sophia pointed toward the window.
“Outside.”
Every adult stopped breathing.
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
Dante moved immediately.
“Who had it?”
Sophia thought.
“The old man.”
“What old man?”
“He was standing by the gate.”
Rosa’s stomach dropped.
“Did he talk to you?”
Sophia nodded.
Dante crouched so quickly his knee struck the floor.
“What did he say?”
Sophia looked confused by the sudden fear around her.
“He asked if Mister Grumpy still walks at four.”
Nobody spoke.
Then Sophia reached into her pajama pocket.
“And he gave me this.”
She placed something in Dante’s palm.
A black chess piece.
A king.
Dante stared at it.
On the bottom, scratched into the wood, was a single letter.
V.
For the first time since Victor Falcone went to prison, Dante understood something terrifying.
Victor had never been the king.
May you like
He had only been a piece on someone else’s board.
And someone had just walked up to Dante’s gate to announce the game was beginning again.
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