Chapter 2 - THE NAME THAT MADE THE DON TREMBLE
For a full ten seconds, nobody moved.
Salvatore stared at Tessa as though a dead man had just walked through the restaurant doors.
“Where did you learn to speak like that?”
His voice remained in the old dialect.
Tessa swallowed.
“From a neighbor.”
“What neighbor?”
“An elderly gentleman from Palermo.”
Salvatore's fingers tightened around his cane.
“His name.”
Tessa glanced at Gabriel.
The younger Rossi was watching his father with open astonishment.
“Antonino Cosenza,” she answered.
The old man's face turned gray.
Gabriel leaned forward.
“Father?”
Salvatore ignored him.
“Was he tall when he was younger?”
“I only knew him as an old man.”
“Did he have a scar across his left hand?”
Tessa nodded.
“A deep one. He said he got it working with fishing nets.”
Salvatore closed his eyes.
For a moment, the terrifying old Don looked painfully small.
“He lied about the nets.”
Tessa frowned.
“What?”
Salvatore opened his eyes.
“Antonino Cosenza was my brother.”
Gabriel stared.
“My uncle Antonino died in Sicily.”
Salvatore's jaw tightened.
“That is what I told you.”
The words seemed to strike Gabriel physically.
“You told me he was buried before I was born.”
Salvatore looked away.
“I told you many things.”
Tessa felt suddenly trapped between two men and a history she had never agreed to inherit.
She reached for the water pitcher.
“I should get your order.”
Salvatore caught her wrist.
Not violently.
But firmly enough to stop her.
“Did he ever speak about a girl named Lucia?”
Tessa froze.
She remembered Mr. Cosenza sitting beside his apartment window on winter evenings.
A yellowed photograph resting on his knee.
A little girl in a white dress.
Dark curls.
A crooked smile.
He had called her a picciridda mia.
My little girl.
Tessa slowly nodded.
“Yes.”
Salvatore released her wrist.
His expression changed into something she couldn't name.
Grief.
Fear.
Or recognition.
“Where is Antonino now?”
Tessa lowered her eyes.
“He died four years ago.”
The old man inhaled sharply.
Then turned toward Gabriel.
“Find the girl.”
Gabriel frowned.
“What girl?”
Salvatore's voice became a whisper.
“Lucia.”
He gripped the edge of the table.
May you like
“Before they find her first.”
And then the old Don collapsed.
