The threat.
The peace of the garden didn't last long. By that afternoon, a courier arrived at the main gate with a package addressed specifically to Elara. Dante's security team intercepted it, but when they ran it through the scanners, there were no explosives only paper and cloth.
Dante took the box into his study and closed the door. He opened it with a pocketknife, his jaw tight. Inside, lying on a bed of dead white lilies, was a small, tattered teddy bear. It was missing an eye and the fur was stained with dirt.
His blood went cold. He recognized it from the photos he had kept of Elara over the last fifteen years. It was the toy she had been holding the day she saved him in the alley.
She had lost it a week later, and she had cried for days. Dante had searched for it back then, but he had never found it.
His stepbrother had found it.
Under the bear was a single note written in elegant, mocking script. It didn't have a name on it, but the message was clear.
You think you can keep her in a garden while the world burns, Dante? You saved her from the street just to put her in a cage, but I know where the bars are weak. I have the things she remembers. I have the things you stole from her.
Dante crumpled the note in his fist. He felt a roar of protective fury rising in his chest. His stepbrother wasn't just coming for his money or his territory anymore. He was coming for Elara's mind. He was going to show her every lie Dante had told to keep her by his side.
He walked out of the study and found Elara in the library. He didn't show her the bear. He didn't show her the note. He just walked up to her and pulled her into a hard, desperate embrace.
He told her they were moving. He told her the mansion wasn't safe anymore. He said he was taking her to the fortress on the coast where the walls were twenty feet thick and the sea was the only neighbor.
Elara pulled back and looked at his face. She saw the panic behind his cold eyes. She asked him what was in the box.
Dante lied to her. He told her it was just a warning from a rival. He told her he would handle it.
But as he led her toward the armored car, he saw a black SUV parked on the ridge overlooking the estate. It didn't move. It just sat there, watching them. Dante knew his stepbrother was close, and he knew that the more he tried to tighten his grip on Elara, the more he was playing right into his enemy's hands.