Chapter 1 - The Ghost of Table Nine
The air in the restaurant turned to ice,
as Emily’s words hung between us like a blade.
The little girl,
whose eyes held the weight of my entire ancestry,
tilted her head in a way that mimicked my own father.
It was a haunting,
beautiful sight that tore through my carefully constructed armor.
I felt the weight of the purple crayon in my hand,
a small,
waxy piece of a life I had never known.
Before I could find my voice,
the heavy glass doors of the restaurant swung open once more.
A man stepped in,
his coat dripping with the cold October rain,
moving with a grace that suggested he was no stranger to violence.
He was tall,
composed,
and looked at Emily with a warmth that I had once owned.
“Julian,”
Emily said,
her voice losing its edge and finding a soft melody.
The man walked toward us,
placing a protective hand on the back of the little girl’s chair.
He didn’t look at me with fear,
nor did he look at me with the deference my title usually demanded.
He looked at me with pity.
“Dominic,”
Emily continued,
her grip tightening on the child,
“this is Julian Rossi,
my husband,
and the man who raised Rose while you were busy building your empire.”
The name hit me like a physical blow,
Rose.
She was named after my grandmother,
the only woman in my family who had ever shown Emily kindness.
My blood began to boil,
a mixture of possessive rage and crushing regret.
Michael,
standing behind me,
shifted his weight,
his hand hovering near his jacket,
sensing the shift in the room’s atmosphere.
“I thought you couldn’t,”
I whispered,
my voice a jagged wreck of its former self.
“The doctors said,”
“The tests showed,”
Emily let out a short,
bitter laugh that echoed against the marble walls.
“Your doctors,
Dominic,”
“Your family’s hand-picked specialists,”
“The ones who were paid to ensure I was discarded the moment I didn’t fit the mold.”
I looked at Julian,
who remained silent,
his presence a solid wall between me and the family I never knew I had.
Rose looked up at him and smiled,
reaching out a small hand to tug at his sleeve.
“Daddy,”
she chirped,
the word slicing through my heart like a hot wire.
I wanted to scream,
to tell her that she was mine,
that her blood was my blood,
that her eyes were the map of my soul.
But I was a stranger to her,
a man in a black suit who had walked away before her first breath.
“We are leaving,”
Emily said,
standing up with a grace that made the room feel small.
“The reservation was for a quiet dinner,”
“not a reunion with a ghost.”
I stepped forward,
blocking their path,
my shadow falling over the table.
“You aren’t going anywhere,”
I growled,
the Boss returning to the surface to mask the dying man underneath.
“She is my daughter,”
“I can see it in her eyes,”
“I can feel it in the air.”
Julian stepped in front of me then,
not a single trace of hesitation in his gaze.
“She is the daughter of the man who stayed,”
he said quietly,
his voice a low rumble.
May you like
The rain outside seemed to scream against the glass,
as the world I built began to crumble at my feet.
