Chapter 1 - The Pendant That Should Not Exist
Nico's crying stopped.
Not slowed. Stopped, as though someone had closed a tap.
Mara Bennett stood three feet from table seven with the wine tray still balanced on one palm, and every man in the private dining room stared at her.
The baby stared hardest.
Eight-month-old Nico leaned so far from his father's chest that the man had to catch him under the ribs.
"Hold him," the boss said again.
Mara's mouth went dry.
She had spent her entire life learning which instincts to trust. Her mother's lessons had been simple. Never get into a car with a stranger. Never tell anyone where you live. Never borrow money from people who smile while they threaten you.
And if you ever see men with dragons on their skin, walk the other way.
The man in front of her had dragons on both hands.
But Nico made a soft, impatient sound and reached for her again.
Mara set the wine tray down.
"Only for a minute," she said.
One of the bodyguards looked offended that she had attached a condition to anything.
The boss did not.
He rose.
Up close, he seemed even larger. There was something unnervingly controlled about him, as though every movement had first been approved by some invisible committee inside his head. His pale scar disappeared into the dark stubble along his jaw.
He transferred Nico into Mara's arms.
The child settled against her instantly.
His small hand grabbed the collar of her uniform.
Mara smiled despite herself.
"Well, hello to you too."
Nico babbled.
For the first time all evening, the boss looked confused.
"He screamed for forty minutes with the pediatric nurse yesterday," one of the men said.
"Enzo," the boss warned.
The man shut his mouth.
Mara shifted Nico higher on her hip. "Maybe he just likes people who smell like mashed potatoes and floor polish."
A quiet laugh came from somewhere at the table.
The boss did not laugh, but the hard line of his mouth changed.
Then Nico caught the silver chain at Mara's throat.
She reacted automatically.
"Easy, sweetheart."
Too late.
The chain slipped from beneath her collar.
The pendant swung into view.
It was old, no bigger than a quarter, an oval of tarnished silver set with one dark green stone. The front carried a tiny engraved lily. The back had been scratched over the years until the initials were almost invisible.
E.B.
Mara had worn it since she was thirteen.
Her mother had pressed it into her hand from a hospital bed and closed Mara's fingers around it.
Never sell this. Never take it off. And if anyone recognizes it, you leave.
Mara had always assumed the warning was one more piece of fear from a woman who had spent her whole life looking over her shoulder.
The boss went pale.
Not metaphorically.
The color actually drained from his face.
His right hand tightened around the back of the chair.
Enzo stood so quickly his chair struck the wall.
"Matteo?"
So that was his name.
Matteo.
Mara's heart started beating harder.
Matteo looked at the pendant as if it had risen from a grave.
"Where did you get that?"
The room changed.
Mara felt it before she understood it.
The men who had been eating were no longer eating. One had placed both hands flat on the table. Another watched the door.
Nico tucked his face against Mara's neck, completely unaware that the air had become dangerous.
"My mother gave it to me."
Matteo's eyes lifted to hers.
"What was her name?"
Mara remembered the rule.
If anyone recognizes it, you leave.
She stepped backward.
"I should give your son back."
"Her name."
Mara's spine stiffened.
"Don't order me around."
Enzo made a sound that might have been a cough designed to hide disbelief.
Matteo stared at her.
Then, unexpectedly, his voice softened.
"Please."
That frightened her more than the command.
"Evelyn," Mara said. "Evelyn Bennett."
The silence afterward seemed endless.
One of the older men at the table crossed himself.
Matteo whispered, "That's impossible."
Mara's grip on Nico tightened.
"What is?"
Matteo did not answer her.
He looked at Enzo.
"Lock the room."
Mara's blood turned cold.
"No."
A bodyguard moved toward the door.
Mara took another step back.
"Nobody is locking me anywhere."
Matteo turned.
"Don't touch the door."
The guard stopped.
Mara stared at him.
He slowly lifted both hands where she could see them.
"No one is keeping you here."
"You just told him to lock the room."
"Because if your mother's name is Evelyn Bennett, there are people outside this room who would kill you for that pendant."
Mara almost laughed.
It came out as a breath.
"That's ridiculous."
"I wish it were."
Nico lifted his head and patted her cheek.
Matteo watched the gesture with an expression she could not read.
Then he stepped closer and, very carefully, touched the edge of the pendant with one finger.
Mara flinched.
He stopped immediately.
"May I?"
"No."
His hand dropped.
"Fair."
"Why do you know it?"
Matteo looked at the lily.
"My mother owned it."
Mara frowned.
"Then your mother and my mother had the same necklace."
"No."
He shook his head.
"There was only one."
The room seemed to tilt.
Mara heard the hum of refrigeration from the service corridor. The clink of silverware downstairs. Someone laughing in the main dining room as if the world outside table seven still made sense.
"My mother had it for as long as I can remember."
Matteo's gaze darkened.
"My mother gave it to Evelyn Bennett twenty-six years ago."
Mara stopped breathing.
Twenty-six.
She was twenty-five.
"What are you saying?"
"That your mother worked for my family."
"She was a nurse."
"Before that."
Mara searched his face for the lie.
She found none.
Matteo pulled out the chair beside him.
"Sit down."
"No."
"Mara."
"No."
She handed Nico toward him.
Nico immediately began to fuss.
Matteo took his son, but the baby twisted toward Mara and started crying again.
The sound made Matteo close his eyes for half a second.
When he opened them, something had changed.
"You need to go home," he said.
Mara blinked. "That is literally what I've been trying to do."
"Not alone."
"I came alone."
"You won't leave alone."
"That sounds like a threat."
"It's not."
"Men like you probably say that a lot."
One of the bodyguards looked at the ceiling.
Matteo almost smiled.
Almost.
Then the smile disappeared.
"Twenty-six years ago, a house on Bellini Street burned to the ground. My mother died inside."
Mara's anger faded.
Matteo continued.
"I was nine. Evelyn Bennett pulled me through a kitchen window while the second floor collapsed."
Mara stared at him.
"That's not possible."
"She saved my life."
"My mother never lived in Chicago."
"She did."
"No."
"Mara—"
"She grew up in Ohio. She was a hospital nurse. My father was Thomas Bennett. They married in Dayton."
Matteo's gaze sharpened at the name.
"Thomas Bennett?"
She hated how quickly he recognized that too.
"You know him."
"I knew of him."
Her chest tightened.
Thomas Bennett had died when Mara was six. A highway accident, her mother had said. Rain. A truck. Instant.
"What does that mean?"
Matteo looked toward the older man who had crossed himself.
The man looked away.
"Tell me," Mara said.
Matteo lowered his voice.
"Thomas Bennett was an accountant."
"I know."
"He wasn't working for a hospital."
Mara felt the first crack open inside everything she believed about her childhood.
"He was working for my father."
She shook her head.
"No."
"He found money moving through companies that did not exist."
"No."
"He told my mother."
"Stop."
"He and Evelyn tried to leave Chicago together."
"Stop."
"The Bellini fire was meant to kill all three of them."
Mara's eyes burned.
"You don't know anything about my parents."
"I know Evelyn survived because she dragged me out."
Mara's voice broke.
"And then what?"
Matteo was silent.
That silence was answer enough to frighten her.
"What happened to her?"
"We thought she died two weeks later."
Mara laughed once, without humor.
"My mother died four years ago."
Matteo went still.
"How?"
"Cancer."
"Where?"
"St. Anne's in Milwaukee."
He looked at Enzo.
Enzo was already reaching for his phone.
"Don't you dare," Mara snapped.
He stopped.
Mara looked at Matteo.
"You don't get to investigate my dead mother because your baby likes me."
"No," he said. "I get to investigate because someone tried to kill her once, because your father died after he found something my family wanted buried, and because you just walked into a room full of men wearing the symbol she told you to fear."
Mara froze.
She had never told him about the warning.
"How did you know that?"
Matteo's jaw tightened.
"Because the dragons came later."
"What?"
"The men who set the Bellini fire were not my father's loyalists."
He turned his right hand over.
The dragon across his knuckles seemed suddenly less like decoration and more like a brand.
"They belonged to my uncle Vittorio."
A glass shattered behind them.
Everyone turned.
The older man at the table had knocked over his wine.
His face had gone gray.
Matteo looked at him.
"Uncle Sal?"
The old man wiped his mouth with a napkin.
"Matteo, enough."
The words were quiet.
Too quiet.
Mara saw Matteo notice it too.
"Why enough?"
Salvatore rose.
"Because the girl has heard too much."
Every guard in the room changed posture.
Nico started crying again.
Mara's skin prickled.
Salvatore's hand moved inside his coat.
Matteo crossed the distance before Mara understood what was happening.
He put himself between her and the old man.
Enzo grabbed Salvatore's wrist.
A black pistol hit the carpet.
No one spoke.
Mara stared at the weapon.
Salvatore stared at her pendant.
May you like
And then he said six words that turned her entire life inside out.
"Evelyn should have died that night."
