Chapter 1
“They didn’t attack my cafe to reach Sofia.”
My voice came out quieter than I expected.
I looked from the surveillance photograph in Rafe’s hand to the old portrait of Rachel Bellini, then finally toward Lucia and Marco.
“They came because someone finally found Rachel’s daughter.”
Lucia’s face changed.
That mattered more than denial.
Claire sat against the cafe wall with one hand pressed carefully near the bandage around her shoulder. Sofia was still curled against her, refusing to move even after Rafe positioned two guards between them and everyone else.
Marco pushed himself upright beneath the collapsed restaurant-history frame.
“You’re losing your mind.”
I looked at him.
Twenty seconds earlier he had punched me because I reached toward Claire.
Now he wanted calm.
Interesting.
Claire stared at the photograph. Her fingers moved instinctively toward the silver half-circle pendant at her throat.
“My mother’s name was Rachel,” she whispered. “My foster mother told me she died when I was a baby.”
Lucia laughed.
The sound was cold enough that Sofia tightened her arms around Claire.
“Of course she did. Every nobody needs a tragic story.”
Claire looked at her.
Lucia continued.
“You’re a waitress wearing jewelry you probably stole. That does not make you a Bellini.”
I saw Claire flinch.
Before I could answer, Sofia did.
“She didn’t steal it.”
Lucia’s eyes narrowed.
Sofia buried her face against Claire again.
“Mommy had one like it.”
I stopped.
My late wife had owned several moon-shaped pieces. I had never connected them to Rachel because I had been a boy the last time I saw my father’s younger sister alive.
Rafe crouched beside the ruined display and lifted another photograph.
“Boss.”
I took it.
Rachel stood outside the cafe twenty-four years earlier.
Beside her was Lucia.
Marco stood in the background, younger but unmistakable.
And on the back wall behind them, someone had scratched a tiny half-moon symbol into the wood.
Claire whispered, “I’ve seen that.”
I looked at her.
“Where?”
She touched her pendant.
“Inside the clasp.”
Lucia suddenly lunged.
Rafe intercepted her before she reached Claire.
That was the moment I stopped wondering whether the pendant mattered.
The only question left was why.
I looked at Lucia.
“You just tried to tear jewelry from a wounded woman’s throat.”
Her expression hardened.
Then Marco spoke from behind me.
“Adrian, if you know what’s good for Sofia, you’ll leave Rachel buried.”
I turned slowly.
Marco realized too late what he had said.
May you like
Rachel had supposedly died twenty-four years ago.
He had just warned me to keep her buried.
