Chapter 1 - The Baby Who Reached for Me Three Times
The first time Leo reached for me, I thought he wanted my necklace.
By the third time, the entire restaurant had gone quiet.
Aurelia was packed that Friday night, all amber light and white tablecloths, with a jazz trio fighting to be heard over champagne glasses and people who spoke louder whenever they mentioned money.
I had three dinner plates balanced on my left arm and exactly sixty-eight dollars in tips tucked inside my apron when the front door opened.
Two men in dark suits entered first.
They did not look at the hostess.
They looked at exits.
Then Dante Rosselli walked in carrying a baby.
I did not know his name yet, but everyone else apparently did.
The bartender stopped polishing a glass.
My manager, Mr. Carrillo, abandoned a couple who had been waiting twenty minutes for wine.
Even the owner came out from the office and stood straighter.
Dante looked somewhere near fifty, though power made his age difficult to guess. Long dark hair brushed the collar of a burgundy suit. A scar cut one side of his forehead. Black ink disappeared beneath his white shirt.
A dragon.
My mother’s voice came back so clearly that for one second I smelled the cheap lavender detergent she always used.
If you ever see men with dragons on their skin, Lena, you walk the other way.
She had called me Lena only when she was frightened.
My legal name was Alina Valdez.
According to my mother, Lena was an old nickname she invented when I was a baby.
I had not heard it since the night she disappeared eight months earlier.
“Table seven,” Mr. Carrillo whispered beside me.
I kept watching the dragon.
“What?”
“Table seven is yours.”
“I have five tables already.”
“Not anymore.”
He took the plates from my arm himself.
That frightened me more than Dante’s bodyguards.
Mr. Carrillo once made me serve eleven tables during a Saturday rush while running a fever.
“Be careful,” he said.
“With the baby?”
His eyes widened.
“With Mr. Rosselli.”
So that was the name.
Dante Rosselli.
Everyone in Boston knew it, though respectable people usually pretended they did not.
Rosselli Maritime.
Rosselli Construction.
Restaurants.
Warehouses.
Unions.
Charities with marble plaques and names no one wanted to ask too much about.
Newspapers called him a businessman when lawyers were paying attention and an alleged organized-crime figure when they were not.
I picked up a menu.
“You need the tip,” I whispered to myself.
Then I walked toward him.
The baby sat against Dante’s chest wearing a tiny white shirt beneath a navy vest, as if someone had dressed him for a board meeting.
He was maybe nine months old.
Light brown hair.
Serious gray eyes.
One hand twisted into Dante’s jacket.
He should have looked ridiculous in that room.
Instead he looked watchful.
Like his father.
“Good evening.”
My voice came out too bright.
“Welcome to Aurelia. Can I start you with something to drink?”
Dante looked up.
His eyes were darker than the baby’s.
Tired too.
That surprised me.
Powerful men were not supposed to look tired.
His gaze dropped to my name tag.
“Alina.”
The way he said it made the hairs rise on my arms.
I forced a smile.
“That’s what the plastic says.”
One of the men beside him looked offended.
Dante’s mouth moved almost imperceptibly.
“Amarone.”
“Of course.”
“Water for the table.”
I wrote it down.
Then glanced at the baby.
“And for him?”
“Milk.”
“Warm?”
Dante looked at me again.
“Yes.”
I turned to leave.
That was when Leo made a small sound.
Not a cry.
A startled little gasp.
I looked back.
His entire body had twisted in Dante’s arms.
He was reaching for me.
Both hands.
Fingers opening and closing.
Dante frowned.
“He doesn’t do that.”
I smiled awkwardly.
“Maybe he likes the necklace.”
My fingers touched the small silver pendant at my throat.
A round medal worn smooth around the edges.
My mother had given it to me when I was six.
She said it belonged to her mother.
Dante’s eyes dropped to it.
Something changed in his face.
Not recognition exactly.
Something closer to impact.
“Where did you get that?”
The question was too sharp.
I covered the pendant with my palm.
“My mother.”
“What was her name?”
I took one step back.
“I should get your wine.”
Leo reached again.
This time he made an impatient little sound.
“Eh.”
His hands opened toward me.
I looked at Dante.
“He really wants something.”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“He has refused three nannies in two months.”
“I’m not applying.”
That almost made one of the bodyguards smile.
Then Leo began to cry.
Not loudly.
Worse.
The exhausted, wounded cry of a baby who had learned that adults might not understand what he needed.
Dante stood.
He shifted Leo against his shoulder.
“It’s all right.”
The baby cried harder.
I should have walked away.
Instead, some old reflex took over.
My mother had done the same thing whenever a child cried near us.
Three slow taps between the shoulder blades.
A pause.
Then three more.
Without thinking, I stepped closer.
“May I?”
Every security man at the table went still.
Dante stared at me.
“At your own risk.”
I touched Leo’s back.
Three taps.
Pause.
Three taps.
Then I whispered the same words my mother used when I was sick.
“Piano, piccolo cuore. Piano.”
Easy, little heart.
Leo stopped crying.
The silence around table seven became enormous.
I froze.
Dante’s face had gone completely still.
Leo turned his head.
Then reached for me again.
Dante hesitated.
For one impossible second, I thought he might actually hand me the baby.
Then he did.
Leo came into my arms as if he had done it a hundred times.
He pressed one warm palm against my cheek.
And smiled.
The entire restaurant disappeared.
I smelled baby powder.
Warm milk.
And something else.
Lavender.
My mother’s detergent.
My heart stumbled.
Leo caught my pendant in his fist.
The silver disc flipped over.
A tiny engraving showed on the back.
A dragon curled around a star.
Dante rose so quickly his chair struck the floor behind him.
Every bodyguard moved.
Mr. Carrillo went pale across the room.
Dante stared at the pendant.
“Take it off.”
I tightened one arm around Leo.
“No.”
His eyes lifted to mine.
“Where did your mother get that?”
“I told you. Her mother.”
“What was your mother’s name?”
My pulse pounded.
“Marisol Valdez.”
Dante stared at me for three long seconds.
Then he said a name I had never heard.
“Elena.”
I swallowed.
“What?”
“Her real name was Elena Rosselli.”
I laughed because the alternative was to panic.
“My mother’s name was Marisol.”
“No.”
Dante’s voice had lost all threat.
That frightened me more.
He looked broken.
“My sister’s name was Elena.”
Leo touched my mouth.
The baby was still smiling.
Dante looked from him to me.
Then he whispered, “Only Elena knew those words.”
My skin went cold.
“What words?”
“Piano, piccolo cuore.”
The restaurant stayed silent.
Dante stepped closer.
His eyes were wet now.
“My sister used to say that to me when we were children.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
“She disappeared twenty-seven years ago.”
“No.”
“She took that medal with her.”
“No.”
“Alina.”
“My mother disappeared eight months ago.”
Dante stopped breathing.
I clutched Leo tighter.
He looked at the baby.
Then at me.
And I watched a powerful man understand something before I did.
Eight months.
The same month my mother vanished.
The same month, I would later learn, Leo’s private night nurse had disappeared from the Rosselli house without saying goodbye.
Dante’s voice dropped almost to a whisper.
“What did your mother look like?”
I took out my phone with shaking fingers.
The lock screen was a photograph of Mom and me at Revere Beach.
Dark hair.
Brown eyes.
Thin face.
Silver streak near one temple.
Dante took one look.
His knees nearly gave out.
One of his men caught his elbow.
Dante did not notice.
He stared at my mother’s face.
May you like
Then he said the sentence that tore the first hole through everything I believed about my life.
“That woman is my sister.”
