Chapter 2 - SHE CAME HERE LOOKING FOR YOU
The baby was still asleep against my chest when the man across from me finally spoke.
“That’s Serena.”
His voice had changed.
Until then, Adrian DeLuca had sounded like a man who expected rooms to obey him.
Now he sounded like a widower.
I looked from the photograph to him.
“Serena?”
“My wife.”
The baby shifted.
Adrian’s eyes dropped immediately to his son.
“Leo’s mother.”
Cold moved through me.
The woman behind the bar had my eyes.
My cheekbones.
The same small dimple that appeared whenever I smiled on the left side.
And her baby had stopped crying the second I touched him.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“No,” Adrian said.
“It doesn’t.”
My manager, Mr. Orelio, had been pretending to polish the same wineglass for almost thirty seconds.
Adrian noticed.
Of course he did.
“You know something.”
Mr. Orelio went pale.
“I know many people, Mr. DeLuca.”
“That was not what I asked.”
The two men at Adrian’s table stopped eating.
One was broad through the shoulders with silver at his temples.
The other wore a dark suit and the expression of someone who had spent his entire adult life noticing exits.
Bodyguards.
Capos.
Whatever people like Adrian called them.
I tightened my hold on Leo.
He made a soft sound and curled closer.
Adrian’s attention returned to me.
For one strange second, he looked jealous.
Not of me.
Of the ease with which his son rested against someone else.
“How long ago did she die?” I asked.
“Four months.”
I swallowed.
“I’m sorry.”
His jaw tightened.
“Thank you.”
No performance.
No dramatic grief.
Just two words from a man who had apparently heard them too many times.
Mr. Orelio put down the glass.
“I think we should talk in the office.”
Adrian looked at him.
“Why?”
“Because your wife asked me for something before she died.”
Everything stopped.
Adrian stood.
“What?”
Mr. Orelio glanced around the restaurant.
People had started eating again, but badly.
Half the room was still listening.
He led us into the small back office beside the kitchen.
Adrian’s men remained outside.
Leo stayed with me.
Nobody suggested otherwise.
Mr. Orelio closed the door.
Then he looked at me.
“Elina, how much did your mother tell you about your family?”
That was not the question I expected.
“Not much.”
My mother, Marisol Valdez, had died when I was twelve.
After that, my aunt Rosa raised me in Queens.
I knew my mother had worked restaurants.
I knew my father, Mateo, had died before I was old enough to remember him.
I knew money had always been short.
That was about it.
Mr. Orelio sat heavily behind his desk.
“Your mother worked here.”
I stared.
“What?”
“Before you were born.”
“You never told me.”
“I did not know you were Marisol’s daughter when I hired you.”
“My last name is Valdez.”
“There are many Valdezes.”
He looked ashamed.
“And you use Elina. She called you Lina.”
I remembered.
Nobody had called me Lina since Aunt Rosa died three years earlier.
Adrian remained standing.
“What does this have to do with Serena?”
Mr. Orelio looked at the photograph through the office window.
“Serena worked here too.”
Adrian’s expression hardened.
“I knew she waited tables in college.”
“She came here because of Marisol.”
My stomach tightened.
“How?”
Mr. Orelio opened a desk drawer.
He removed a small cloth pouch.
Old.
Blue.
Tied with string.
He put it on the desk.
“Elina.”
I did not touch it.
“What is that?”
“Something Serena left.”
Adrian stepped closer.
“When?”
“Six weeks before she died.”
The words struck him visibly.
“She came here six weeks before the accident?”
“Yes.”
“You never told me.”
“She asked me not to.”
Adrian’s face became frighteningly still.
“You knew who I was.”
“Yes.”
“You knew whose wife she was.”
“Yes.”
“And when she died, you still said nothing.”
Mr. Orelio looked toward me.
“Because she told me silence might keep this girl out of something she never chose.”
I felt suddenly angry.
“You had no right to decide that.”
“I know.”
“Then why?”
His face tightened.
“Because three days after Serena’s funeral, a man came into this restaurant and told me she had been asking questions that could break two families.”
Adrian’s eyes narrowed.
“Who?”
Mr. Orelio looked away.
Adrian leaned one hand against the desk.
He did not raise his voice.
“Who came here?”
“Frank Valenti.”
That name meant nothing to me.
It meant plenty to Adrian.
His expression changed.
“My wife’s uncle.”
Mr. Orelio nodded.
Adrian stared at him.
“Frank told you to keep quiet?”
“He told me Elina was safer if nobody connected her to Serena.”
“Did he threaten you?”
“No.”
That surprised all of us.
“He looked scared.”
Mr. Orelio pushed the blue pouch toward me.
“Open it.”
My fingers felt numb.
Inside was a silver bracelet.
Old.
Small enough for a child.
Three charms hung from it.
A star.
A tiny spoon.
And a heart scratched nearly smooth.
My breath caught.
I knew that heart.
Not this exact bracelet.
But the shape.
I pulled a chain from beneath my uniform.
A tiny silver heart hung from it.
My mother had given it to me before she died.
Mr. Orelio’s face went pale.
Adrian stared at the two pieces.
They were identical except for one detail.
Mine had an E engraved on the back.
The bracelet charm had an S.
Adrian whispered, “Serena.”
Mr. Orelio nodded.
My hands began shaking.
“What does this mean?”
He opened another drawer.
This time he removed an old Polaroid.
Two young women stood outside Restorante Orelio.
One was Stella Orelio, the owner’s late sister.
The other was my mother.
Marisol.
She was young.
Maybe twenty-three.
And pregnant.
Standing beside her was a little girl around four years old.
Dark hair.
Bright eyes.
That same dimple.
On the back, my mother had written one sentence.
I read it twice.
Then a third time.
FOR MY GIRLS — SERENA AND LINA. MAY SOMEDAY YOU FIND EACH OTHER AGAIN.
The room tilted.
I looked at Adrian.
At Leo sleeping against me.
At the photograph.
“Serena was my sister?”
Mr. Orelio shook his head slowly.
“Half-sister.”
Adrian stopped breathing.
I looked down at the child in my arms.
Leo’s mother had been searching for me.
Six weeks before she died.
And I had never known she existed.
Then Adrian asked the question I could not yet make myself ask.
“Why were they separated?”
Mr. Orelio looked toward the closed office door.
“Because Serena’s father belonged to the Valenti family.”
He swallowed.
May you like
“And Elina’s father was the union man they destroyed to keep control of Pier Nine.”
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