Chapter 2 - A FATHER FOR ONE DAY
At 7:12 the next morning, Damiano Verrone stood in front of his bedroom mirror wearing a charcoal suit worth more than most people’s cars.
And for perhaps the first time in his adult life, he had absolutely no idea what he was doing.
Rafael watched from the doorway.
“You’re nervous.”
Damiano adjusted his cuff.
“I have negotiated with senators.”
“Yes.”
“I have sat across tables from men who wanted me dead.”
“Yes.”
“I once walked into a warehouse with six armed men waiting for me.”
“I remember.”
Damiano turned.
“Then explain why attending an elementary-school presentation feels worse.”
Rafael almost smiled.
“Because senators don’t ask you to make a papier-mâché volcano.”
Damiano stared at him.
“A what?”
“You’ll find out.”
Twenty minutes later, a black sedan stopped outside St. Catherine’s Academy.
Damiano stepped out carrying the red construction-paper heart Mia had given him.
Children and parents crowded the sidewalk.
Several adults recognized him.
Their conversations stopped.
Damiano ignored them.
Then the school doors burst open.
“YOU CAME!”
Mia ran toward him.
Damiano barely had time to bend before she threw both arms around his waist.
Something inside him tightened.
He hadn't been hugged like that in years.
Not without fear.
Not because someone wanted money.
Not because someone wanted protection.
Mia simply wanted him there.
“You said tomorrow,” she announced.
“I keep my contracts.”
She grinned.
Then Damiano noticed her clothes.
A carefully ironed yellow dress.
Old shoes polished until the worn leather shone.
Two mismatched clips holding back her dark curls.
Everything clean.
Everything cared for.
Nothing expensive.
“Where’s your mother?”
The happiness vanished from Mia’s face.
“She couldn’t come.”
“Why?”
“She has to work.”
“Today?”
Mia nodded.
“She said Mr. Grayson would fire her if she missed another shift.”
Damiano’s expression changed.
“Where does your mother work?”
Mia hesitated.
“At your house.”
Damiano stopped.
Rafael, standing several feet behind them, stopped too.
“My house?”
Mia nodded.
“She cleans the west rooms.”
Damiano turned slowly toward Rafael.
Rafael looked equally confused.
The Verrone estate employed more than forty permanent staff members, plus contractors and event workers. Damiano rarely involved himself in hiring domestic employees.
“What’s her name?”
“Isabella Romano.”
The world seemed to narrow.
Damiano heard nothing after that.
Not the children.
Not the traffic.
Not the bell ringing inside the school.
Only that name.
Isabella Romano.
Impossible.
Rafael saw his face.
“Damiano?”
Mia tugged his hand.
“Do you know Mommy?”
He looked down at her.
For the first time, he really studied the child.
Brown eyes.
Dark curls.
A tiny crescent-shaped birthmark near her left ear.
Damiano's pulse slowed.
Three years earlier, another woman had possessed that exact birthmark.
Not Isabella.
Her sister.
Sofia Romano.
The woman Damiano had loved.
The woman who had supposedly died.
“Mr. Damiano?”
Mia’s voice brought him back.
He forced his expression to soften.
“Today is about you.”
She smiled.
“Okay.”
Inside the auditorium, dozens of children stood beside their parents.
The teacher announced the project.
“My Family Hero.”
One child talked about a firefighter father.
Another talked about a surgeon.
Then Mia walked onto the stage.
She carried her red heart.
Damiano sat in the front row.
“My hero is my mommy,” Mia began.
Damiano looked up.
“She works when she's tired. She says she already ate when there isn't enough food. And when I get scared, she tells me stories until I forget why.”
Parents grew quiet.
“But today we were supposed to bring our daddy.”
Mia looked directly at Damiano.
“I don't have one.”
A few children shifted uncomfortably.
“So I borrowed somebody.”
A ripple of laughter moved through the room.
Mia smiled.
“He looks scary, but he isn't scary to me.”
Damiano heard Rafael cough suspiciously behind him.
Mia continued.
“My mommy says sometimes families aren't the people who are supposed to stay. Sometimes they're the people who decide to.”
Damiano’s smile disappeared.
Those words.
He knew them.
Sofia had said them.
Years ago.
Exactly those words.
After the presentation, Mia ran toward him.
“Did I do okay?”
Damiano knelt.
“You were the best person on that stage.”
“You have to say that. You're my borrowed dad.”
“No. I don't.”
She laughed.
Then a man appeared behind her.
Principal Wallace.
“Mr. Verrone?”
“Yes?”
“There’s someone asking for Mia.”
Damiano stood.
“Who?”
“A man claiming to be her uncle.”
Mia’s smile disappeared.
“I don't have an uncle.”
Damiano looked toward Rafael.
That was enough.
Rafael immediately headed for the front entrance.
Damiano took Mia’s hand.
“You stay beside me.”
They reached the lobby.
Nobody was there.
Only an envelope.
It had been placed on the receptionist’s desk.
Damiano opened it.
Inside was a photograph.
Mia leaving the Verrone estate with Isabella two evenings earlier.
On the back were seven handwritten words:
THE GIRL IS NOT YOUR SECOND CHANCE.
Damiano stared at it.
Someone knew.
May you like
Someone knew exactly which wound Mia had reopened.
And someone was already watching her.
