Page 22 of Blood Orange Christmas
“No,” he says, and he doesn’t pretend to soften it. The word lands clean and sits between us without sliding away. There’s a sound far off in the halls—a door, a laugh too sharp, a heel on stone—and the house seems to take a shallow breath.
“Thank you,” I say. It’s not forgiveness. It’s a marker laid down where we can both see it. He knows what I mean.
He glances past me to the walk-in, to the far wall, to the narrow service passage that runs behind the scullery and feeds the pantry. He’s mapping too. He always is. “Luca’s been hovering,” he says. It’s not a question.
“He jokes too much and watches too closely,” I answer. “He knows every seam in this room. So do I.”
“Good,” Dante says. “Keep it that way.”
We plate. We send. The room on the other side opens and closes like a tide. The saffron lands. The cod disappears. Someone says “brava” with their whole face and not just their mouth. I keep moving. I don’t let the word soft settle anywhere it shouldn’t.
Luca steps in again near the end of service to carry two trays because the servers are stretched. He lifts them with a grin and a little bow Marco imitates. “For the saints,” he says, low. To me, as he passes, under the hiss of a pan, “If a door is locked, chef, there’s a reason.”
“Sometimes, the reason is the door,” I say.
“That’s a good reason,” he answers and is gone with the plates before the oil finishes singing.
When the last course leaves, the kitchen exhales. I set a small bowl aside for Marco, then one for myself, because a cook who doesn’t taste her own food isn’t to be trusted. He sits at the window and eats like a man with a job to do. He picks up a lemon spoon and flicks his eyes to me, waiting for the rule. I nod. He smiles into his bowl.
Dante appears again, closer this time. The kitchen is quieter. The lines have shifted. He tips his head toward the courtyard as if to ask for a minute. I wipe my hands and follow him out under the arch. The night is clear enough that the dark has depth. The fountain mutters. Somewhere on the far ridge, a car moves without headlights for a stretch, then corrects itself and pretends it didn’t.
“You found the cellar door,” he says, like it’s a fact and not a test.
“I found a door that smells like wine and iron,” I say, “and a letter opener with a rag that won’t come clean.”
He doesn’t look surprised. He doesn’t look pleased. “Don’t open it.”
“It’s locked,” I say, “and I didn’t ask for the key.”
“That was the right choice.”
“What happened down there?” I ask.
“Business,” he says. “And a mistake.”
“Whose?”
“Someone who won’t be in our rooms again.”
It’s not enough. It’s all I’m going to get. I let the question go because I want to keep the part of the night that remains to us.
“What do you need from me?” I ask.
“Your attention where you already have it,” he says. “Your son kept close. Your name off any lists that can travel. If someone asks you friendly questions, don’t answer them. If someone asks you unfriendly ones, find Harrison.”
“I already did,” I say.
“I know,” he says.
His phone vibrates in his jacket. He glances at it, frowns once, and answers without stepping away. “Accardi.” He listens. The muscles along his jaw tighten one by one. “No,” he says into the phone, flat. Then louder, carrying, sharp enough to cut the air,“I don’t care if it’s his wedding. You tell Paolo if he doesn’t show tomorrow, I’ll send someone to dig him out of his own grave.”
He’s already moving down the hall before the last word is done, voice going hard and distant as it rolls along the stone. The fountain keeps speaking like it has been here longer than our threats. The guards at the far end of the courtyard reposition a step at a time, gently, as if they don’t want the night to notice.
Inside the kitchen, the last pans hiss and go still. Marco looks up from his bowl and asks if the saints like saffron. I tell him yes, because tonight, they do. I watch the corridor where Dante disappeared and feel a shiver run down my spine.
10
SERENA
