Chapter 2 - THE BLUE STONE
The dining room of Bellamy’s suddenly felt as small as a closet.
I looked at the older woman sitting beside me.
Rosa Moretti’s hand was still resting on her throat, her fingers brushing the tiny blue stone at the center of the diamond strand.
“Someone else lost it?” I repeated.
My voice sounded hollow over the quiet hum of the restaurant.
Luca Moretti didn’t move.
He sat perfectly still in the chair he had pulled out for himself, his dark eyes locked on his mother. The faint amusement that had been on his face a moment ago was completely gone.
“Mama,” Luca said.
His voice was low. Not a request. A warning.
Rosa didn’t look at him. She kept her eyes on me.
“Twelve years ago,” she said softly. “November the fourteenth.”
A cold prickle started at the base of my neck.
I knew that date.
Everyone in my family knew that date.
It was the night my mother came home from her shift at this exact restaurant with her uniform torn, her hands shaking, and a refusal to ever speak about what had happened. She was fired the next morning. She died three years later without ever explaining why.
“Who lost it?” I asked.
I didn’t care that my manager, Richard, was standing three feet away, his face pale with panic. I didn’t care that the most dangerous man in Chicago was sitting at the table.
I needed to know.
Rosa’s eyes filled with tears.
“My daughter,” she whispered. “Sofia.”
Luca stood up. The legs of his chair scraped sharply against the hardwood floor.
Half the restaurant flinched.
May you like
“That is enough,” Luca said.
“She was wearing it the night she vanished,” Rosa continued, her voice trembling but defiant. “The night my husband told everyone she ran away with a man from the west side. But I know she didn’t run, Anna. I know it
