Chapter 2 - THE DRAGON BENEATH HIS SKIN
“Reach for strangers,” the bodyguard answered.
Dante Moretti looked at his son as though the baby had just broken a law of nature.
Leo was beginning to cry.
Not the ordinary irritated whimper of a tired child. His little face crumpled, his fists trembled, and he made a desperate sound that reached somewhere beneath my ribs.
I had heard that sound before.
Not from a baby.
From my mother, during her final week in the hospital, when she woke from a nightmare and begged me not to open the door.
“May I?” I asked.
Dante looked up.
“May you what?”
“Hold him.”
The bodyguard nearest me straightened.
“Absolutely not.”
I turned toward him.
“I was asking his father.”
For one uncomfortable second, nobody moved.
Then Dante extended his son.
“Careful.”
I almost laughed.
The man had armed guards stationed beside the bread baskets, and he was warning a waitress to be careful with a baby.
But I understood.
Leo was the one thing in that room Dante couldn't replace.
The moment the little boy settled against me, his crying stopped.
Completely.
He looked at my face.
Then he smiled.
It was a crooked, sleepy smile that made me forget the black suits, the guns, and the dragon tattoo.
“Well, hello there,” I whispered.
Leo touched my chin.
Dante watched every movement.
“He hasn't smiled like that in weeks,” he said.
Something in his voice made me look up.
Grief.
Not anger.
Not suspicion.
Grief.
“Has he been sick?”
“No.”
“Teething?”
“Possibly.”
“Missing someone?”
Dante went still.
His bodyguard looked away.
I realized I had touched something painful.
“I'm sorry,” I said.
Leo made a delighted sound and grabbed the chain around my neck.
My mother's silver pendant slipped from beneath my blouse.
It was small, oval, and scratched along the edges. On one side was a delicate engraving of a bird surrounded by five stars.
On the other was a tiny symbol I had never understood.
A crown with a broken point.
Leo wrapped his fingers around it.
The bodyguard nearest Dante stopped breathing.
“Boss.”
Dante didn't answer.
“Boss, look at the pendant.”
I instinctively covered it.
“It's mine.”
Dante leaned forward.
“Where did you get that?”
“My mother.”
“Who gave it to her?”
“I don't know.”
His expression changed.
“Take it off.”
“No.”
“Miss Reed—”
“I said no.”
The bodyguards shifted.
Dante raised one hand.
They stopped.
His eyes remained fixed on the silver oval.
“Do you know what that symbol means?”
“No.”
“Then you have no idea what you're wearing.”
“It's a necklace, Mr. Moretti. Not a declaration of war.”
One bodyguard actually coughed to hide a laugh.
Dante didn't smile.
Instead, he reached into his jacket and removed his phone.
“Marco. Close the restaurant.”
My blood turned cold.
“What?”
“Now.”
The bodyguard moved toward the manager.
I tightened my arms around Leo.
“You can't close someone's business because you don't like their jewelry.”
Dante stood.
He was taller than I expected.
“I'm not closing it because of the necklace.”
“Then why?”
His gaze moved toward the windows.
A black SUV had stopped across the street.
Inside sat a man with a silver dragon tattoo climbing his neck.
Dante's jaw tightened.
“Because someone followed you here.”
I looked at the vehicle.
The man behind the windshield turned his head.
He was looking directly at me.
Then he smiled.
I had never seen him before.
But I knew that smile.
My mother had described it once during a fever.
A man who smiles when everyone else is afraid.
Dante moved between me and the window.
“Marco. Rear exit.”
The first gunshot shattered the restaurant's front window.
Glass exploded over a table.
People screamed.
Leo jerked in my arms.
Dante caught my shoulder and pushed me behind a marble column.
“Stay down!”
Another shot struck the wall.
The room erupted into chaos.
A waiter fell.
Chairs overturned.
Someone screamed for the police.
Dante drew a gun from beneath his jacket.
I stared at it.
Everything my mother had warned me about was happening.
The dragon.
The gun.
The man who owned the room.
But the man with the dragon tattoo was standing between me and the bullets.
“Alina!”
I looked up.
Dante was crouched beside me.
“Give me Leo.”
The baby clung to my dress.
“Leo,” Dante said softly.
His son cried harder.
Dante looked at me.
Then at the shattered windows.
“Fine. You're coming with us.”
“No.”
“Someone is trying to kill you.”
“You don't know that!”
A bullet struck the column above my head.
Stone dust rained over my hair.
Dante didn't blink.
“I know enough.”
Marco appeared beside the kitchen entrance.
“Rear door clear!”
Dante grabbed my hand.
We ran.
I held Leo tightly against my chest as we crossed the kitchen.
A chef stood frozen beside a steaming pot.
A dishwasher whispered a prayer.
The back door opened into an alley where two black vehicles waited.
Dante pushed me into the first.
Marco climbed behind the wheel.
The SUV accelerated before Dante had fully closed his door.
I looked back.
Aurelia disappeared around the corner.
My job.
My purse.
My phone.
My ordinary life.
Gone.
Leo finally stopped crying.
He rested his cheek against my collarbone and closed his eyes.
Dante stared at the pendant.
“Tell me your mother's name.”
“Nora Reed.”
“Her real name.”
I looked at him.
“What?”
“Your mother's real name, Alina.”
“Nora Reed.”
Dante's face darkened.
He took out his phone and made a call.
“Find everything on Nora Reed. Birth records, death certificate, hospital records. Everything.”
He listened.
Then his expression changed.
“What do you mean?”
A long silence.
“Check again.”
I felt sick.
“What?”
Dante ended the call.
He looked at me as though he wished he could soften what came next.
“Alina, Nora Reed never existed.”
I shook my head.
“That's impossible.”
“She had a driver's license, an apartment, medical records, and a funeral,” I whispered.
Dante's voice became quieter.
“Those things can be created.”
“Not an entire life.”
He didn't answer.
The SUV turned onto Lake Shore Drive.
Chicago glittered beyond the windows.
I stared at the man beside me.
“Who are you?”
“Someone your mother was afraid you'd meet.”
“Why?”
His eyes dropped to the pendant.
“Because twenty-five years ago, a woman disappeared from my father's house carrying that necklace.”
My heartbeat thundered.
“What woman?”
Dante looked at me.
“His wife.”
May you like
And then he said the words that destroyed the only history I had ever known.
“Alina, I think you're my father's missing daughter.”
