Chapter 1 - The Baby Who Knew Me
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 conversation with a couple who had been waiting twenty minutes for their wine.
Even the owner came out from the office and stood straighter.
Dante was somewhere near fifty, though power made his age difficult to guess. There were silver threads near his temples, a thin scar along his jaw, and black ink rising above his collar at the left side of his neck.
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 had 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 had 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.
I knew it.
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 black vest, as if someone had dressed him to attend 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. They were supposed to have people who did exhaustion for them.
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.
May you like
Both hands.
Fingers opening and closing.
