Chapter 13 - The Christening Trap
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Dante’s breath caught audibly in the quiet nursery as Tessa’s hands rested against his bare chest.
For six days since finding her in that Virginia delivery room, he had held himself on an iron leash—sleeping alone in the massive master bed on the other side of the wall while listening to her breathe through the open doorway, terrified that if he pushed her too soon, she would bolt back into the shadows.
Now, feeling the soft curve of her cheek pressed over his heartbeat and the tremble of exhaustion in her slender frame, his arms came up around her with aching tenderness, pulling her flush against his warmth.
"You're exhausted, tesoro," Dante murmured into her hair, lifting her effortlessly off her bare feet and carrying her not toward the guest room, but through the connecting oak door into his dark master bedroom. "Come lie down with me. Just sleep. Nothing else until you tell me you're ready."
He laid her down in the center of the king-sized bed and stretched out beside her over the black silk sheets, pulling her back against his chest so his heavy arm rested protectively across her waist. For the first time in eight months, surrounded by the scent of cedarwood and the steady rhythm of his breathing behind her, Tessa closed her eyes and slept without a single nightmare until morning.
Over the next four days leading up to Sunday’s christening, the invisible wall between them melted away little by little—in the way Dante brought her coffee with oat milk and nutmeg every morning at seven, in the lingering brush of his fingers against the back of her neck whenever they leaned over Leo’s crib together, and in the heated, unspoken hunger in his dark eyes whenever she walked past him.
When Sunday noon arrived, St. Leonard’s Church in the North End was surrounded by forty armed Castellano soldiers in tailored black suits.
Inside the candlelit sanctuary, smelling of frankincense and white lilies, every capo and district boss in New England stood in respectful silence as Dante and Tessa stood at the marble baptismal font. Tessa wore a breathtaking cream silk sheath dress that Dante had commissioned for her, her honey-brown hair swept up to reveal the antique diamond locket resting at her throat, while tiny Leo wore the heirloom silk christening gown that had belonged to Dante’s father.
One by one, after the priest poured the holy water over Leo’s dark curls, the tough, weathered syndicate captains filed past the front pew, bowing their heads respectfully to Tessa before kissing Dante’s ring. Even Uncle Corrado and Sofia Rossi—standing stiffly near the back pillars—were forced to watch in bitter silence as the entire organization swore blood loyalty to the newborn heir.
By four o’clock that afternoon, the reception back at the Chestnut Hill estate was in full swing across the manicured lawns and the main ballroom.
Waiters carried silver trays of champagne and cannoli among two hundred guests while a string quartet played near the terrace fountain.
After an hour of polite introductions, Tessa carried a sleepy Leo upstairs to the quiet second-floor nursery so he could escape the noise, accompanied by Elena, the gentle, fifty-year-old private pediatric nurse whom Dr. Aris from Massachusetts General had recommended to help out during the reception.
"You go back down and enjoy a plate of food with Mr. Castellano, ma'am," Nurse Elena smiled warmly inside the sunlit nursery, adjusting the lace canopy over Leo’s white oak crib. "I’ll sit right here in the glider and watch him while he naps. There are two guards right outside in the hall."
"Thank you, Elena, I’ll just go grab a glass of sparkling water and come right back up," Tessa said, kissing Leo’s forehead before stepping out into the upstairs gallery.
Halfway down the grand marble staircase, Tessa realized she had left her silk shawl on the nursery sofa. Turning quietly back up the steps so she wouldn't bother Dante—who had just stepped into his downstairs study with Nico and two harbor captains—she walked back down the carpeted second-floor corridor.
Suddenly, she stopped ten feet from the nursery door.
The two armed guards who had been stationed outside the nursery door five minutes ago were gone.
A faint, metallic scent—like burned almonds and surgical ether—drifted from beneath the cracked door of the linen closet next to the nursery.
Tessa’s blood ran cold. She nudged the linen closet door open an inch with her shoe and saw both guards slumped unconscious on the floor with tranquilizer darts sticking out of their necks.
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And from inside the nursery came the quiet sound of Nurse Elena speaking into a burner phone in a crisp, cold voice that lacked every trace of her earlier warmth:
"The guards are down. I have the kid in the travel bag and the potassium syringe ready if the mother walks back in. Meet me at the east service tunnel in two minutes."
