Chapter 2 - THE NAME ON THE OLD PHOTOGRAPH
At six the following morning, Dante stood in his study looking at a photograph he had not touched in seventeen years.
Three young men stood beside a battered red fishing boat.
Dante, twenty-two and smiling without restraint, occupied the center. To his left stood his younger brother, Luca. To his right stood a thin, freckled mechanic named Samuel Bellwood.
Samuel had been dead for four years.
Dante stared at the photograph.
Then he looked toward Tomas, who stood beside the study door.
"Say her last name again."
"Bellwood."
Dante's jaw tightened.
"You're certain?"
"Her identification was checked when she entered the estate."
Dante looked back at the photograph.
Samuel Bellwood.
The man who had once saved his life.
The man whose death had never made sense.
And now a young woman bearing the same surname was sleeping in his guest room.
Tomas shifted.
"Could be coincidence."
Dante shook his head.
"Maybe."
But he didn't believe it.
He remembered Samuel's daughter.
A little girl with chestnut hair and a laugh that carried across the docks.
Rosalie.
He hadn't seen her since she was seven.
Samuel had moved his family away from the river after a bitter disagreement with Dante's father.
Dante remembered the argument.
He remembered shouting.
He remembered Samuel saying he would never work for the Valerios again.
And he remembered the last thing Samuel had said before leaving.
"One day, Dante, you're going to have to decide whether you're your father's son or your own man."
Dante had spent seventeen years avoiding that question.
May you like
Now Samuel's daughter was sleeping beneath his roof.
And something about the timing felt wrong.
