Chapter 1 - SEVEN MINUTES
The most feared man in New Orleans took one bite of pecan pie, and Nell Brisco knew she had made a terrible mistake.
“Who made this?”
Carmine Orsini set down his fork.
Fourteen people stopped talking.
Nell stood beside his chair, gripping a silver tray hard enough to hurt her fingers.
“Me, sir.”
For three years, she had cleaned his floors, polished his silver, and passed through his house like a shadow.
Nobody at that table had ever asked her name.
Tonight, Carmine pulled out the chair to his right.
“Sit down.”
Housekeeper Odette Puit stepped forward.
“Sir, the girl is a housemaid.”
“I’m speaking to Miss Brisco.”
Nell lowered herself into the chair.
Across the table, Carmine’s younger brother, Vittorio, stopped turning his wineglass.
“Who told you to make it?” Carmine asked.
“No one. The head chef cut his hand. There wasn’t another dessert ready.”
He slid the plate toward her.
“Taste it.”
She obeyed.
“The filling’s a little too sweet.”
“You think so?”
“With black coffee, it would taste different.”
He watched her mouth when she said it.
Then he asked about the butter.
The pecans.
The syrup.
Nell answered too quickly, grateful for questions with harmless answers.
“You let the mixture cool for exactly seven minutes before pouring it into the eggs.”
Carmine’s hand flattened against the table.
“Seven minutes?”
“Yes.”
“Not five. Not ten.”
“No, sir.”
“Where did you learn that?”
Her heartbeat filled her ears.
She had survived by following one rule: never let anyone ask more than two questions in a row.
She had quit two jobs when someone asked a third.
“My mother taught me.”
“What was her name?”
“Rose.”
Vittorio’s glass struck the table.
A small sound.
Nell heard it anyway.
Carmine leaned back.
For the first time since she had entered his house, he looked old.
“Where is your mother now?”
“Dead.”
Something moved through his face.
Pain, perhaps.
She refused to trust it.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Nell stood.
“If that’s all, sir—”
“Did she burn the first batch?”
Nell went still.
Her mother had always burned the first batch of pecans because she talked while the pan was on the stove.
Carmine looked down at the pie.
“She used to blame the oven.”
Nell could no longer feel her hands.
At the far end of the table, Vittorio folded his napkin.
“Carmine. You’re upsetting the girl.”
But Carmine wasn’t looking at his brother.
He was looking at the thin white scar along Nell’s thumb.
May you like
The scar she had gotten at eleven, breaking a window to escape a burning house.
“Elena?” he whispered.
