Chapter 1 - The Name Dante Heard Before the Baby Reached Again

Leo kept reaching.

Both hands opened toward me as if he expected me to understand something everyone else in the restaurant had missed.

I took one involuntary step closer.

Dante Rosselli’s arm tightened around him.

Not possessive.

Protective.

The men beside him noticed too.

One shifted in his chair.

The other looked toward the exits.

I almost laughed from nerves. Apparently a nine-month-old stretching toward a waitress qualified as a security event at table seven.

“He likes the necklace,” I said.

My fingers touched the small silver pendant at my throat.

It was oval, plain on the front, scratched along one edge. My mother had worn it for years before giving it to me on my twenty-first birthday.

Dante’s gaze dropped to it.

His face changed.

Only slightly.

But I saw it.

The exhaustion disappeared.

So did the polite distance.

“What did you say your name was?”

I pointed at the plastic tag.

“Alina.”

“No.”

The word was quiet.

Cold enough that the bodyguard nearest him straightened.

I frowned. “I’m pretty sure I know my own name.”

Leo made another urgent little sound.

Then Dante said a different one.

“Lena.”

The restaurant vanished around me.

Jazz.

Glasses.

Voices.

Everything blurred beneath the sudden memory of my mother standing in our kitchen eight months earlier, pressing both hands around mine.

If you ever see men with dragons on their skin, Lena, you walk the other way.

She had looked terrified.

Two days later, she disappeared.

I stepped back.

“How do you know that name?”

Dante did not answer.

Leo began twisting against his chest.

The baby’s expression crumpled.

Not fear.

Frustration.

I had the bizarre feeling he was trying to get to me.

Dante stood.

Every conversation within twenty feet weakened.

He was tall enough that I had to tilt my head slightly.

“Where did you get that necklace?”

“My mother.”

“Her name.”

Something in me hardened.

“You first.”

One of the men beside him inhaled as though I had insulted royalty.

Dante barely reacted.

“My name is Dante Rosselli.”

“I know that now.”

“Your mother.”

“Why?”

His eyes moved over my face slowly.

Not in the way men sometimes looked at waitresses.

He was searching.

Comparing.

“What was her name?”

I should have walked away.

My mother’s warning had been simple.

Dragon.

Leave.

Instead I heard myself say, “Marisol Valdez.”

The man seated to Dante’s right dropped his wine glass.

It did not shatter.

It struck the tablecloth and rolled, spilling red across white linen.

Dante did not look at him.

His eyes remained on me.

“Marisol.”

The way he said it made my skin crawl.

“You know her.”

He looked toward Leo.

Then back at me.

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

Mr. Carrillo appeared suddenly at my elbow.

“Alina, the kitchen needs you.”

It was a lie.

I could tell because his voice had gone too smooth.

Dante noticed too.

“Go,” he told me.

That surprised me.

I had expected questions.

Threats.

Something.

Instead he sat again.

Leo immediately began fussing.

I backed away from table seven.

Mr. Carrillo walked beside me until we reached the service corridor.

Then he grabbed my elbow.

“What did you tell him?”

I pulled free.

“Nothing.”

“You said your mother’s name.”

“So?”

Carrillo looked toward the dining room.

His face had become gray.

“You need to leave.”

I stared.

“You made me serve him.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Know what?”

He rubbed both hands over his face.

“I thought you were just—”

He stopped.

“Just what?”

“A waitress.”

The insult barely registered.

“What does my mother have to do with Dante Rosselli?”

Carrillo lowered his voice.

“Not here.”

“Then where?”

“Nowhere. Forget it.”

I laughed once.

“My mother disappeared eight months ago.”

His eyes snapped to mine.

That reaction answered more than words.

“You knew.”

“No.”

“You knew something.”

“Alina.”

“What?”

He looked terrified.

Not of me.

Of the man sitting sixty feet away.

“Your mother used to come here.”

My heart stopped.

“When?”

“Years ago.”

“How many?”

“I don’t know. Twenty. Maybe more.”

“That makes no sense.”

Carrillo swallowed.

“She came with her sister.”

I stared.

“My mother doesn’t have a sister.”

He looked at me with something close to pity.

“Yes,” he said.

“She did.”

Before I could speak, the kitchen door opened.

One of Dante’s bodyguards stood there.

He did not reach for a weapon.

He held a folded napkin.

Inside was a photograph.

Old.

Creased.

Two young women stood outside Aurelia before the restaurant had been renovated.

One was my mother.

The other looked enough like me that my knees weakened.

Same eyes.

Same mouth.

Same dark hair.

Around the second woman’s neck was a silver pendant identical to mine.

The bodyguard said, “Mr. Rosselli thought you should see this.”

I lifted the photograph with shaking fingers.

On the back, someone had written three words.

MARISOL AND ELENA.

Under Elena’s name, in different handwriting, was one smaller word.

Lena.

I looked toward the dining room.

Leo had stopped crying.

He was watching me.

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And suddenly I understood the baby had not been reaching for my necklace.

He had been reaching for a face he already knew.