Chapter 2 - The Name He Was Never Supposed to Know
The first thing Arya Brooks did inside the Rolls-Royce was reach for the door handle.
It didn't open.
Her stomach dropped.
Across from her, Dante Moretti sat perfectly still, one hand resting on his knee. Beside him, Luca was checking messages on a black phone.
"Unlock the door," Arya whispered.
Dante looked at her.
"Please," she added.
Something flickered across his face.
"Luca."
The locks clicked.
Arya grabbed the handle again.
The car was moving through downtown Chicago, surrounded by traffic. She could see headlights, pedestrians, a couple laughing outside a movie theater.
Normal people.
Normal lives.
Lives where men didn't drag women away from their jobs and announce they belonged to criminal families.
"Pull over."
Dante leaned forward.
"Arya—"
"Pull over!"
Her voice cracked.
The driver glanced into the mirror.
Dante raised two fingers.
The car moved toward the curb and stopped.
Arya pushed the door open.
Cold air rushed inside.
She stepped onto the sidewalk before realizing she'd left her coat, purse, and phone at the restaurant.
She had twelve dollars in her apron pocket.
And absolutely nowhere safe to go.
Dante emerged behind her.
"Let me explain."
She spun around.
"Explain what? That you kidnapped me? That you broke a man's fingers and then announced I was your property?"
His jaw tightened.
"Sterling was hurting you."
"So you decided to terrify me instead?"
For a moment, Dante said nothing.
The silence surprised her.
Then he looked toward Luca.
"Give her space."
Luca stepped back.
Dante returned his attention to Arya.
"You're right."
She stared.
"What?"
"I shouldn't have taken you out of there without asking."
Arya laughed bitterly.
"That might be the understatement of the century."
His expression didn't change.
"Fair."
She folded her arms.
"Why do you know my name?"
There it was.
The question she'd been trying not to ask.
Dante looked at her carefully.
"Because I knew your mother."
The city seemed to tilt.
Arya stopped breathing.
"My mother died when I was nine."
"I know."
"Her name was Evelyn Brooks."
Dante nodded.
"Yes."
"Then tell me something only someone who knew her would know."
He hesitated.
Arya stepped back.
"That's what I thought."
"She was left-handed," Dante said.
Arya froze.
"She hated carnations because they reminded her of hospital waiting rooms. She played the piano badly and sang beautifully. And every Christmas, she made cinnamon rolls shaped like stars."
Arya stared at him.
Nobody knew about the cinnamon rolls.
Nobody except her mother.
And a little girl who had spent seventeen years trying not to forget.
"How?"
Dante's expression changed.
"My father knew her. I met her when I was young."
Arya swallowed.
"Was she involved with your family?"
"Yes."
"How?"
He looked toward the traffic.
"She worked for us."
Arya's heart hammered.
"What kind of work?"
Dante didn't answer immediately.
That silence frightened her more than anything he'd said.
Finally, he spoke.
"She kept our financial records."
Arya took another step backward.
"My mother was a bookkeeper?"
"Among other things."
She remembered Evelyn sitting at the kitchen table with stacks of papers.
She remembered her mother locking a drawer whenever strangers visited.
She remembered an argument through a closed door, a man's voice, and the sound of breaking glass.
Then the funeral.
A sealed coffin.
An aunt who disappeared six months later.
And a series of foster homes that taught Arya not to ask too many questions.
"What happened to her?"
Dante's face hardened.
"That's what I've been trying to find out."
Arya stared.
"You don't know how she died?"
"I know what the official report said."
"Car accident."
He nodded.
"But I don't believe it."
A cold sensation moved through her chest.
For seventeen years, Arya had lived with the knowledge that her mother died on a rainy highway outside Chicago.
Now a mafia boss was standing in front of her suggesting everything she'd been told might have been a lie.
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because someone has been asking about Evelyn Brooks again."
"Who?"
Dante glanced toward Luca.
"A man connected to Sterling."
Arya's stomach dropped.
"Mr. Sterling?"
"Yes."
She remembered his hand around her wrist.
His questions.
The way he insisted she look at him.
Then something else surfaced.
Three weeks earlier, Sterling had asked whether she had family in Chicago.
She'd thought he was being intrusive.
Two nights ago, he'd asked whether Brooks was her real surname.
She hadn't answered.
Now her skin went cold.
"He knew who I was."
Dante nodded.
"I believe so."
Arya looked toward the dark windows of the car.
"Then why did you let him touch me?"
Dante's expression tightened.
"I didn't know he'd approach you tonight."
"But you knew I worked there."
"Yes."
"And you didn't warn me?"
He said nothing.
Arya laughed without humor.
"Wonderful. One more man deciding what I should know."
Dante lowered his eyes.
For a moment, he looked younger than his reputation.
Then he spoke quietly.
"You're right again."
Arya was beginning to hate how calmly he admitted things.
She wanted him to be monstrous.
It would make everything easier.
Instead, he kept revealing something inconvenient.
Conscience.
"Where were you planning to take me?" she asked.
"To my house."
Her breath caught.
"No."
"There's information there that belongs to your mother."
"Then send it through a lawyer."
He considered that.
"All right."
Arya blinked.
"All right?"
"Yes."
"You're just going to let me leave?"
Dante looked at her.
"I should never have made you think otherwise."
She stared at him.
He continued.
"There's a hotel two blocks from here. Luca can arrange a room under your own name. Or we can get you a car to somewhere you choose. You don't owe me anything."
Arya didn't know what frightened her more.
His reputation.
Or how badly she wanted to believe him.
She looked down at her trembling hands.
"I have an apartment."
"Where?"
She hesitated.
Dante nodded before she answered.
"You don't have to tell me."
Arya took a breath.
Then said, "I need my phone."
"Luca will retrieve it."
"And my paycheck."
Dante looked faintly surprised.
"Your paycheck?"
"Yes. I worked eight hours tonight."
For the first time, something like a smile appeared.
"Of course."
Arya folded her arms.
"And I want to know why you looked at me like you'd seen a ghost."
The smile vanished.
Dante studied her face.
"Because you have your mother's eyes."
Arya felt her throat close.
He continued.
"And because seventeen years ago, she asked my father to promise that if anything happened to her, no one would ever let you disappear."
Arya stared.
"Then why did I grow up in foster care?"
Dante's face changed.
For the first time, she saw something unmistakable in his expression.
Shame.
"Because my father broke that promise."
Twenty minutes later, Arya sat in the lobby of a small hotel, holding a cup of tea she hadn't ordered.
Luca had retrieved her coat and belongings from the Gilded Lily.
Her manager had included her wages in an envelope.
There was also a handwritten note.
Don't come back.
She stared at it.
Eight months of work.
Eight months of swallowing humiliation.
Gone.
Luca stood nearby.
"Mr. Moretti said you could contact his attorney if you wanted the documents."
Arya looked up.
"Does he always make everything sound so reasonable after doing something terrifying?"
Luca's expression barely changed.
"Not usually."
She almost smiled.
Then she noticed something inside the envelope with her wages.
A folded piece of paper.
It wasn't from the restaurant.
The handwriting was unfamiliar.
Four words.
Your mother didn't die.
Arya's fingers went numb.
Below the words was a date.
Tomorrow.
And an address on Chicago's South Side.
She looked toward Luca.
He saw her face.
"What is it?"
Arya folded the paper.
"Nothing."
It was a lie.
May you like
And as she watched Luca step away, she understood that whatever had happened to Evelyn Brooks seventeen years earlier had not ended with a funeral.
It had been waiting for her daughter to grow up.
