Chapter 2 - The Woman My Mother Pretended Not to Be
I did not go home with Dante Rosselli.
That surprised everyone except me.
Mr. Carrillo practically pushed me toward Dante’s car.
“You can leave.”
“I’m scheduled until midnight.”
“You can leave forever if necessary.”
Dante stood near the restaurant entrance with Leo in his arms.
The baby had started crying again after I handed him back.
Not screaming.
Just unhappy.
That made leaving harder.
Which made me angry.
At the baby.
At Dante.
At my mother.
Mostly at myself.
Dante said, “I can take you home.”
“No.”
One of his bodyguards looked offended by the existence of the word.
Dante did not.
“Then Frank will follow your cab.”
“No.”
“For security.”
“Whose?”
His mouth tightened.
“Yours.”
“I had security before you walked in.”
“No, you had ignorance.”
That sentence nearly made me slap him.
Instead I looked at Leo.
“Your baby likes me. That does not make you my family.”
“No.”
“Good.”
“It makes the fact that Elena cared for him relevant.”
I went still.
“You said that in the restaurant. Explain.”
Dante looked around.
Not the place.
He was right.
I hated that too.
We compromised on a twenty-four-hour diner across the street.
Public.
Bright.
No private room.
Dante left the bodyguards outside.
He brought Leo because the baby refused to stay with them.
I sat opposite him in a cracked vinyl booth while a waitress named Sherry poured coffee without recognizing anyone.
It may have been the safest room in Boston.
“Start with the night nurse,” I said.
Dante adjusted Leo against his chest.
“Eight months ago, I hired a woman named Helena Vale.”
My stomach tightened.
“Not Marisol?”
“No.”
“What did she look like?”
He described my mother.
Same silver streak.
Same brown eyes.
Same small scar beneath her chin from when she supposedly fell off a bicycle at twelve.
“She cared for Leo at night,” Dante continued. “He had severe reflux after his mother died.”
I looked at him.
“Leo’s mother is dead?”
His eyes changed.
“Yes.”
I lowered my voice.
“I’m sorry.”
He nodded once.
“Her name was Sofia. She died four days after Leo was born.”
Something in me softened despite myself.
Dante continued.
“Leo rarely slept. Helena could calm him.”
“With the phrase.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you recognize her as your sister?”
That question landed.
Dante looked toward the diner window.
“Elena was nineteen when she disappeared. Helena was forty-six.”
“People age.”
“I know.”
“You didn’t ask?”
“I asked where she was from. She said New Mexico.”
“My mother told people Arizona.”
Dante gave a humorless smile.
“That sounds like her.”
“You do not know her.”
His eyes met mine.
“I knew her first.”
I hated how much that hurt.
He took out his phone.
A photograph appeared.
Two teenagers standing on a dock.
The boy was unmistakably Dante.
Thinner.
No beard.
No scar.
Beside him stood a girl with dark hair and angry brown eyes.
My mother.
Not similar.
Not maybe.
Her.
She wore my pendant.
I stopped breathing.
Dante slid the phone across.
“Elena Rosselli. Seventeen.”
I touched the screen.
Mom had spent my whole life telling me she grew up in Tucson with a widowed mother who cleaned motel rooms.
There was no Tucson.
No grandmother named Rosa.
No tiny desert apartment.
I stared at the photograph.
“Why did she leave?”
Dante’s face hardened.
“Our father.”
“What did he do?”
“Too much.”
“That is not an answer.”
“No.”
He understood the correction.
“Our father, Salvatore, ran everything before me. He believed daughters were useful for alliances.”
My stomach turned.
“He tried to marry her off?”
“To the son of another family.”
“At nineteen?”
“At eighteen.”
“And she ran.”
“Yes.”
“Why warn me about dragons?”
Dante’s fingers touched the tattoo near his neck.
“The dragon was our father’s symbol.”
“Yours too.”
“I inherited more than I should have.”
That was the first honest answer I believed.
Leo stirred.
His tiny hand caught Dante’s shirt.
“What happened after she disappeared?”
“We searched.”
“To bring her back?”
Dante hesitated.
I stood.
He said quickly, “I was twenty-one.”
“That is not an answer.”
“No.”
He looked ashamed.
“At first, yes.”
I sat again slowly.
“I thought she was destroying the family. I thought Father was furious because he loved her.”
“You believed him.”
“Yes.”
“Did you find her?”
“No.”
“But she found you.”
“Eight months ago.”
I stared.
“She came into your house.”
“Yes.”
“And said nothing.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Leo made a sleepy sound.
I looked at him.
“She cared for him, then disappeared the same night she disappeared from my life.”
Dante’s eyes narrowed.
“What happened that night?”
“I came home from work.”
My voice changed without permission.
“Our apartment door was open.”
Dante went still.
“The kitchen light was on. Her coffee was cold. Her coat was gone, but her purse was still there.”
“Phone?”
“On the counter.”
“Any sign of struggle?”
“No.”
“Note?”
“One.”
I had read it so many times I knew every curve of the handwriting.
Do not look for me.
Do not trust men with dragons.
Lena, forgive me.
Dante’s face went white.
“She called you Lena?”
“Yes.”
He looked down.
“What?”
“That was my name for her.”
I stared.
“When we were children, I couldn’t say Elena. I called her Lena.”
The diner noise seemed to move farther away.
My nickname was not something my mother invented for me.
It belonged to her.
She had given me her brother’s name for her.
Why?
Dante whispered, “She left you a trail.”
“To you?”
“Maybe.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Nothing she did was careless.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
He took a breath.
“Elena left my house with something.”
“What?”
“A ledger.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Of course there’s a ledger.”
“Not money.”
“What then?”
“Names.”
His face hardened.
“People inside my organization who had been using Leo’s guardianship trust.”
I stared.
“You think my mother stole evidence?”
“I think she protected my son.”
“And then disappeared.”
“Yes.”
“Because?”
Dante looked at me.
“Because whoever she was afraid of knew she had it.”
I thought of my mother’s note.
Do not trust men with dragons.
I looked at Dante’s tattoo.
“So why should I trust you?”
He did not answer immediately.
“Don’t.”
That stopped me.
“What?”
“Not yet.”
He reached into his coat and placed a business card on the table.
“No title. Private number.”
I did not touch it.
“Why?”
“Because Elena ran from our family for twenty-seven years.”
His eyes moved to my mother’s photograph.
“If she came back only to protect Leo, then whatever frightened her may still be close to him.”
I looked at the sleeping baby.
May you like
Then Dante said the second thing that tore my life open.
“If Elena is your mother, Alina, then I am your uncle.”
