Chapter 2 - The Woman in the Photograph Was Leo’s Mother

I did not finish my shift.

Mr. Carrillo tried to tell me I could go home quietly and that payroll would correct the hours.

I asked him whether twenty-six years of lies qualified for overtime.

He did not answer.

I changed in the employee bathroom, shoved my uniform into my bag, and stared at the photograph until the faces blurred.

Marisol.

My mother.

Elena.

Her sister.

The sister who supposedly did not exist.

The woman who looked like me.

I should have gone home.

Instead I returned to the dining room.

Table seven had been cleared of plates.

Dante remained.

Leo sat on his lap chewing the corner of a clean napkin.

The two men in suits stood several feet away now.

Not gone.

Giving us the illusion of privacy.

I stopped beside the table.

“Elena was his mother.”

Dante looked at me.

“Yes.”

The word landed gently and still managed to hurt.

“When did she die?”

His eyes changed.

“Three months ago.”

“How?”

“Car accident.”

“Was it an accident?”

Dante’s silence answered.

I sat without being invited.

Nobody stopped me.

“Start talking.”

One bodyguard made a tiny sound.

Dante glanced at him.

The man looked away.

Then Dante returned his attention to me.

“Marisol and Elena were sisters. Marisol was older by four years.”

“My mother told me she was an only child.”

“She wanted distance from this world.”

“This world meaning you?”

“This world meaning men like me.”

“That sounds like a yes.”

Leo watched us with serious gray eyes.

Dante did not defend himself.

That disturbed me more than arrogance would have.

“Elena met me twelve years ago,” he continued. “Not through Marisol.”

“How?”

“She worked for a legal-aid organization negotiating a labor dispute involving one of my companies.”

I almost laughed.

“My secret aunt met a mafia boss during labor mediation?”

“She insulted me in front of six attorneys.”

“That sounds genetic.”

Something moved at the corner of Dante’s mouth.

Not quite a smile.

Then it disappeared.

“We saw each other afterward.”

“Married?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Elena refused.”

That sounded sensible.

“But she had your baby.”

“Yes.”

“Leo.”

Dante looked down at him.

Something softened in his face.

“Leo.”

I tried to fit this into the version of my mother I knew.

Marisol worked hospital laundry when I was a child.

Later she cleaned offices.

She complained about rent.

Bought store-brand coffee.

Hated television crime shows because she said violent men were boring.

Nothing about her suggested secret meetings with organized crime families.

“When did my mother stop speaking to Elena?”

“Long before I met Elena.”

“Why?”

Dante hesitated.

I noticed.

“Tell me.”

“Marisol believed Elena romanticized danger.”

“Were you the danger?”

“Eventually.”

The honesty irritated me.

“You say that like weather.”

“No.”

His voice hardened.

“I say it like responsibility.”

For the first time I understood why everyone else in the restaurant feared him.

Power sat close beneath his restraint.

But fear was not the only thing there.

Grief was too.

I looked at Leo.

“He thinks I’m her.”

“No.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he knew his mother.”

“He’s nine months old.”

“He knows your face is not hers.”

“Then why?”

Dante looked at my necklace.

“Elena wore one like that every day.”

I touched the pendant.

“My mother gave it to me.”

“They were a pair.”

“Pair?”

“The sisters had matching pendants. Their father gave them one each.”

My grandfather.

Another person reduced to missing information.

“What happened to Elena’s?”

Dante’s jaw tightened.

“It disappeared after the crash.”

I lowered my hand.

“And mine?”

“Marisol kept hers.”

I thought of my mother wearing it while cooking, cleaning, sleeping.

Then giving it to me.

Leo reached again.

This time I did not move away.

His fingers touched the pendant.

Then my chin.

He stared.

A soft sound escaped him.

Not a word.

Almost one.

“Na.”

Dante went still.

“What?”

Leo patted my face.

“Na.”

My eyes burned.

“What did he call Elena?”

Dante looked toward the table.

“Mama.”

“That isn’t the same.”

“No.”

He looked at me.

“But she sang to him in Spanish. There was one song.”

I knew before he said it.

My mother used to sing when she thought I was asleep.

Not a common lullaby.

A strange little melody about a paper moon and a bird crossing water.

I hummed the first three notes.

Leo froze.

Then smiled.

Dante’s chair scraped backward.

The men across the room moved instantly.

I stopped humming.

“What?”

Dante looked genuinely shaken.

“Where did you learn that?”

“My mother.”

“Elena wrote it.”

The room tilted.

“When?”

“When she was seventeen.”

I stood.

Everything was too close.

The photograph.

The necklace.

The song.

A baby who remembered.

“My mother disappeared eight months ago.”

Dante stared.

“I know.”

My anger sharpened.

“You know?”

“I have been looking for her.”

“Why?”

“Because six weeks before she vanished, she contacted Elena.”

I could barely breathe.

“What did she want?”

“To help her leave Boston.”

I looked at Leo.

“Leave you?”

“Yes.”

Dante did not soften the word.

“Elena believed someone inside my organization was watching her. She wanted Leo away before she confronted them.”

“Confronted them about what?”

Dante reached into his jacket.

He placed a phone on the table.

Not his current phone.

Older.

Cracked screen.

“Elena’s.”

My heart pounded.

“We recovered it from the car.”

He opened an unsent draft message.

Recipient: MARISOL.

The text read:

I found where the missing money goes. It isn’t Dante. If anything happens, do not trust the dragon closest to him.

I read it twice.

Then looked at the men standing near Dante.

Both wore high collars.

I suddenly understood why.

“Who is the dragon closest to you?”

Dante’s face became unreadable.

“My younger brother.”

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He paused.

“Stefano.”