Page 157 of Reign

Her smile flickers.

Then she lets it disappear.

“I was old enough to remember the flowers. Young enough to think birthdays were protected somehow.”

The cuttings make sense now.

She doesn’t only want something her mother planted. She wants to take the good part of that garden away from the place where everything else was destroyed. She wants proof that something living can be carried out of that house and taught to grow somewhere new.

There is nothing useful I can say to a child learning that a birthday offers no protection.

I’ve built an empire on knowing what to say, when to say it, and when silence will do more work than either.

This one only stands between us with dirt beneath its nails and two birthdays ruined forever.

My phone vibrates.

I check the screen.

Santo.

Dinner tonight. Estate. Seven.

I read it once.

Then again.

The timing is almost cruel.

Elena notices. “What?”

“Santo invited us to dinner tonight.”

“Us?”

“Yes.”

She pulls out her phone and checks it. “Did he say which house?”

“His estate.”

The color leaves her face so subtly another man might miss it.

But I don’t.

“The estate,” she repeats.

“Yes.”

“Great. Wonderful.” Her voice turns bright again. That same brittle lightness she used when she spoke about her mother’s death. “The house where she was taken. Exactly where I wanted to spend my evening.”

I put my phone away.

“If you don’t want to go, we don’t go.”

Her gaze snaps to mine.

For half a second, she looks offended.