Chapter 2 - The Woman in the Photograph
I should have said no.
That was the sensible answer.
No, I didn’t recognize her. No, I had never seen that photograph. No, I didn’t know why the baby in my arms had gone quiet against my chest as if he had finally found something he had been searching for.
But the woman in the frame had my eyes.
Not similar eyes.
Not the same dark color or the same shape.
Mine.
The small dimple at the corner of her mouth was mine too. I had spent my childhood hating it because my mother used to touch it whenever I smiled and say, “You got that from someone who loved you very much.”
She never said who.
Now I knew why.
The boss’s gaze stayed fixed on me.
“You recognize her?” he asked again.
My throat felt dry. “Who is she?”
He did not answer immediately.
The baby shifted against me, one little fist still twisted in the fabric near my collarbone. His breathing had slowed. His whole body had relaxed in a way that did not make sense.
The man with the broken nose leaned toward the boss. “Luca, this is not the place.”
So that was his name.
Luca.
Luca DeSantis.
Everyone in the city knew it, even if no one said it out loud.
He was the man behind the nightclubs, the private security companies, the construction deals that somehow always went through. Police had investigated him for years. Reporters had printed his photograph beside headlines about racketeering, extortion, disappearances, and men who had gone missing after making the mistake of owing the wrong people money.
And I was holding his son.
Luca DeSantis’s eyes darkened at his bodyguard’s warning, but he did not look away from me.
“The woman in that photograph,” he said, “was named Elena Vale.”
My heart jerked.
I knew that name.
Not from the restaurant.
From my mother.
Once, when I was nine, I had found an old envelope hidden beneath her mattress. It contained a newspaper clipping about a woman named Elena Vale who had vanished twenty years earlier. My mother snatched it from my hands so quickly that I thought I had done something terrible.
“Never say that name again,” she had whispered.
Then she burned the clipping in the kitchen sink.
I looked back at the photograph.
“She looks like me,” I said.
“That is why I asked.”
The restaurant had become silent again. Even the diners who had tried to return to their meals were watching us through the reflection in their wine glasses.
I wanted to hand the baby back and run.
But the moment I shifted him toward Luca, he began to cry.
Not a normal cry.
A deep, frightened sound that seemed too big for his little body.
His tiny fingers clutched my neck.
“It’s okay,” I whispered instinctively, rocking him. “I’m here.”
The crying stopped.
Luca stared at me.
The expression on his face was no longer suspicion alone.
It was grief.
Raw, sudden grief.
“His name is Matteo,” he said quietly.
“Matteo,” I repeated.
The baby blinked up at me, then pressed his cheek against my chest.
“He was born eight months ago,” Luca continued. “His mother died three weeks after his birth.”
I looked at him.
“I’m sorry.”
His jaw flexed.
“Don’t be. You didn’t know her.”
“But he did.”
“Yes.”
The word landed heavily.
One of the waiters passed behind the bar, and I noticed him glance nervously at the photograph.
“Sir,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady, “why is that picture here?”
Luca looked toward the manager.
The manager immediately appeared, pale and sweating.
“That photograph has been there for years,” he said. “The former owner put it up. He said she was family.”
“Family?” I asked.
The manager swallowed.
“She was the previous owner’s daughter. I think. I don’t know much more.”
Luca stood.
The entire room seemed to shrink around him.
“Take it down,” he said.
The manager rushed to obey.
“No,” I said.
Luca turned toward me.
I surprised myself with the force in my voice.
“Please,” I said more softly. “Let me see it.”
For a second, nobody moved.
Then Luca nodded once.
The manager removed the framed photograph and carried it toward our table with both hands trembling.
Up close, the woman looked even more like me.
Her hair was longer, almost black, and she wore a silk dress that probably cost more than I made in a month. But her face was familiar in the strangest way.
Not because I remembered her.
Because I had seen pieces of her every morning in the mirror.
On the bottom corner of the photograph was a small silver pendant.
A pendant shaped like a crescent moon.
My hand flew to my neck.
Under my uniform, hidden beneath my blouse, I wore the same pendant.
My mother had given it to me before she died.
“Never take this off,” she had said. “No matter who asks.”
Luca noticed.
“Show me,” he said.
“No.”
His eyes narrowed.
“I’m not asking for it.”
“That’s what it sounded like.”
For the first time, the corner of his mouth moved—not a smile, exactly, but something close to reluctant respect.
“Fair enough,” he said.
Then he stepped back.
“May I ask what is engraved on the back?”
My fingers closed around the pendant.
I had never looked.
Not really.
I knew there was an inscription, but my mother had warned me not to open it. For years, I had obeyed because it was one of the last things she had ever asked of me.
But my mother was gone.
And a dead woman with my face was staring back at me from a restaurant wall.
I unhooked the chain.
My hands shook as I opened the small silver clasp.
Inside, in faded letters, were four words.
For Mara, find Luca.
My breath vanished.
The baby made a soft sound in my arms.
Luca DeSantis stopped moving.
The broken-nosed bodyguard looked from the pendant to Luca’s face.
“No,” he muttered.
Luca’s voice came out almost soundless.
“Who gave that to you?”
“My mother.”
“What was her name?”
I swallowed.
“Claire Bennett.”
He stared at me.
Then he turned toward the photograph.
“Elena Vale,” he whispered.
The names meant nothing together to me.
But apparently they meant everything to him.
The bodyguard moved closer. “Boss, Elena died sixteen years ago.”
Luca did not look at him.
“No body was found.”
“She disappeared.”
“She was pregnant.”
The words struck the table like a gunshot.
I tightened my arms around Matteo.
“I don’t understand.”
Luca looked at me again.
His face had become unreadable.
“Neither do I,” he said.
Then the front doors opened.
A man walked in wearing a gray overcoat, carrying a bouquet of white lilies.
He looked ordinary.
Too ordinary.
But Luca’s bodyguards reached for their jackets immediately.
The man smiled at me.
Then he looked at the baby in my arms.
“Mr. DeSantis,” he said pleasantly, “Mr. Vargo sends his regards.”
Luca went still.
The stranger set the flowers on an empty table.
Inside the bouquet was a small black card.
Luca opened it.
Whatever he read erased the color from his face.
I saw only one line before he crushed the card in his fist.
May you like
The girl should have stayed buried with her mother.
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