Chapter 1 - The Name
“Who taught you those words?”
Salvatore Vitiello’s cane struck the marble so hard I felt it through my shoes.
His son stood beside him.
“Answer him, Tessa.”
Every man in Bellori stopped talking.
I clutched my silver water pitcher against my black-and-white maid uniform and wondered whether a blessing could get someone killed.
Seconds earlier, the seventy-six-year-old patriarch had been insulting Chicago, the restaurant, and the girl pouring his water.
He hadn’t known I understood Sicilian.
“Good evening, Don Salvatore,” I had answered in his language.
“May God bless you.”
Now my manager looked sick.
A bodyguard slowly removed his hand from inside his jacket.
And Mateo Vitiello watched me with those gray eyes that missed nothing.
Three weeks earlier, he’d first requested Table Four.
He’d noticed the burn on my wrist before ordering his scotch.
“Kitchen accident,” I’d said.
“And your foot?”
“Long shift.”
“Do you always give such short answers?”
“When the customer hasn’t ordered.”
His mouth had almost curved.
After that, he’d kept coming back.
For six years, invisibility had paid my nursing-school tuition.
I cleaned rooms, stocked shelves, and served people who forgot me before dessert.
Then Chicago’s most feared man started remembering my name.
Tonight, he’d specifically requested me for a private family dinner.
I wished he hadn’t.
Salvatore rose, one hand gripping the table.
He wasn’t looking at the lace on my uniform or the pitcher shaking between my fingers.
He was studying my face.
Then he asked a question in the old dialect my great-grandmother had whispered in our kitchen.
“What was your great-grandmother’s name?”
My throat tightened.
“Rosalia Bellandi.”
The silver-headed cane fell from his hand.
Its crash made my manager flinch.
Mateo reached for his father’s arm, but Salvatore pushed him away.
“Rosalia had a daughter,” he said.
“Anna,” I whispered.
“My grandmother.”
His lips moved without sound.
Across the table, a silver-haired man in a navy suit set down his wineglass with unusual care.
Salvatore looked at him, then back at me.
“When did Rosalia die?”
“Eleven years ago.”
The old man’s face collapsed.
“No,” he said.
Not disbelief.
Something worse.
May you like
Then he caught my wrist with a trembling hand.
“Who told me your family was dead?”
