Chapter 3
Rafe removed Rachel’s portrait from its wooden block.
Lucia stood immediately.
“No.”
One word.
Too fast.
I looked at her.
She sat back down.
Rafe turned the frame over. The backing looked ordinary until he pressed around the edges and one narrow strip moved beneath his thumb.
A hidden compartment opened.
Inside was a tarnished silver half-circle.
Claire stopped breathing.
Rafe placed it on the table.
Her pendant completed it perfectly.
Full moon.
The two halves clicked together with a tiny magnetic snap.
Lucia closed her eyes.
Marco cursed.
I looked at both of them.
“Twenty-four years.”
Neither answered.
“You left half of this inside my cafe for twenty-four years and tried to kill the woman carrying the other half.”
Lucia lifted her chin.
“Nobody tried to kill her.”
Claire laughed weakly.
“I was shot.”
“You survived.”
That sentence changed the room.
Sofia stared at Lucia.
Claire went very still.
I leaned forward.
“Say it again.”
Lucia finally realized how it sounded.
“She survived because whoever attacked her was incompetent.”
“No.”
I looked toward Sofia.
“My daughter is listening.”
Lucia’s expression showed irritation rather than shame.
That told me more than an apology ever could.
Rafe examined the joined pendant.
“There’s an engraving.”
I took it.
Two tiny words appeared around the completed circle.
UNDER FIRST TABLE.
Bellini’s Cafe had changed several times in twenty-four years, but one object had survived every renovation.
The original Bellini family table.
My grandfather had eaten at it when the cafe was still a neighborhood restaurant rather than a family landmark. It now stood behind the main dining room beneath a glass cover.
Marco stood.
“I’m leaving.”
“No.”
He looked at me.
“You don’t order me around like a soldier.”
I almost smiled.
“In my house, after attacking me?”
Rafe stepped behind him.
Marco sat.
Claire looked toward Lucia.
“Why would my mother hide something here?”
Lucia answered with contempt.
“Because Rachel enjoyed making herself important.”
Claire flinched again.
“She was your sister.”
“She was weak.”
There it was.
The first honest sentence.
Lucia looked directly at Claire.
“Your mother cried over men who knew exactly what family required. Then she ran when obedience became uncomfortable.”
Claire’s voice shook.
“She left me.”
Lucia smiled.
“Perhaps even Rachel understood some children were easier to abandon than raise.”
Sofia moved immediately and took Claire’s hand.
I watched her.
May you like
Then Lucia.
And I knew, before opening anything beneath that old table, that whatever Rachel hid there had terrified Lucia for longer than Claire had been alive.
