Chương 2 - The Interrogation
The swinging double doors of the kitchen slammed shut behind Alina, cutting through the clatter of pans and the shouts of the line cooks. Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird.
"Lena? What’s wrong with you?" Marco, the head chef, barked as he wiped a counter with an oily rag. "Table four is asking for their check, and you look like you just saw the grim reaper."
"I have to leave," she gasped, her hands trembling so hard she could barely unknot the strings of her black apron. "Marco, please, cover for me. I’ll make up the hours, I swear. I just—I need to get out of here right now."
"Hey, you can't just walk out in the middle of a dinner rush—"
Alina didn’t wait for the rest of his sentence. She sprinted through the dry storage room, pushed open the heavy steel service door, and stumbled out into the damp, chilly air of the back alleyway. Steam rose from the restaurant’s exhaust vents, mingling with the mist of an impending autumn rain.
She reached into her purse, digging frantically for her car keys, her breaths coming in ragged, shallow sobs. *The dragon. It was real. It wasn't just my mother’s paranoia. He’s here.*
"Running won’t get you far, Miss Valdez."
A calm, deep voice cut through the shadows ahead of her.
Alina froze. Stepping out from the darkness near the alley’s mouth were two of the broad-shouldered men from Dante Rosselli’s private security detail. Behind her, the heavy metallic click of the service door closing signaled that the other two had cut off her retreat.
The gravel crunched under expensive leather shoes. Dante walked into the dim amber glow of the single overhead security light. He was carrying baby Leo securely in his left arm, nestled against his tailored burgundy jacket. In his right hand, he held a sleek leather folder.
Leo wasn't crying anymore, but his eyes were wide, tracking Alina through the gloom with an unnerving, single-minded focus.
"Please," Alina choked out, backing up until her shoulder blades hit the rough brick wall of the restaurant. "Take my purse. Take whatever money I have. Just let me go."
Dante stopped four feet away. Up close, without the bistro’s flattering romantic lighting, he looked even more formidable. The silver at his temples framed a face carved from stone and violence. Yet, the way he cradled the infant in the crook of his arm was shockingly gentle, a jarring contradiction to the lethal presence rolling off him in waves.
"Do I look like a mugger to you, little bird?" Dante asked, his deep voice smooth as bourbon, though laced with cold iron. "I don't want your tip money. I want an answer."
He tilted his chin slightly, revealing the ink climbing up his throat. The black dragon curled possessively around the arterial pulse jumping beneath his skin.
"Only three families in the global syndicate know the history of this sigil," Dante said softly, stepping closer until Alina could smell the rich scents of cedarwood, expensive tobacco, and baby powder radiating from him. "It belongs to the inner sanctum of the Rosselli bloodline. The only people who fear it are dead enemies. Yet, you looked at it as though it was an executioner's blade. Why?"
"I don't know anything about syndicates," Alina pleaded, tears spilling down her cheeks. "I’m just a waitress. My mother was sick for years before she passed. She was delirious at the end. She drew that symbol over and over and told me that if a man wearing it ever crossed my path, it meant the past had finally come to collect its debt."
Dante’s amber eyes flickered with a sudden, sharp calculation. "What was your mother’s name?"
Alina swallowed hard, her mouth bone-dry. "Elena. Elena Valdez."
A heavy silence descended over the alleyway. The only sound was the distant drone of city traffic and the soft, rhythmic breathing of the baby.
Dante didn’t blink. But Alina saw the muscle in his jaw clench so tightly that the scar along his cheek pulled taut. He turned slightly toward his right-hand man, a gray-haired enforcer named Luca. "Run the name. Elena Valdez. Cross-reference it with the 1999 Chicago hospital records."
"Right away, Boss," Luca muttered, stepping aside and pulling an encrypted phone from his jacket.
"Look at him," Dante commanded quietly, redirecting Alina’s attention downward.
Alina looked. Leo had wriggled his arm free of his blanket and was stretching his hand toward her once more, his tiny mouth open in a soundless plea.
"His name is Leo," Dante said, his voice dropping into a register of undeniable vulnerability that caught her completely off guard. "His mother died six months ago. Since the day she left this earth, my son has refused the touch of every nurse, every wet nurse, and every caregiver I have brought into my home. He starves himself until he is sick. He screams until his lungs give out. Doctors call it extreme infant trauma. I call it a curse."
Dante took another half-step forward. The proximity was intoxicating, terrifying. He stood so close Alina could feel the radiant heat of his massive body.
"Tonight is the first time in his life he reached for someone on his own," Dante continued, his gaze holding hers captive. "He didn't just tolerate you. He wanted you. And I do not believe in coincidences, Alina."
Luca stepped back into the circle of light, his face pale as he held out his phone to Dante. "Boss. She’s telling the truth. Elena Valdez was on the payroll twenty-seven years ago. She was the trauma nurse at St. Jude’s who smuggled your brother out through the morgue after the Moretti ambush."
Dante’s breath hitched. He stared down at Alina, his expression shifting from cold suspicion to an intense, possessive realization.
"Your mother didn't run from me," Dante murmured, his voice thick with a dark, awakening realization. "She ran *for* us. She was protecting my family's greatest secret. And now, fate has brought her daughter right back to where she belongs."
"No," Alina cried, shaking her head violently. "No, whatever my mother did, that was her life! I don't want any part of this! Please, just let me go back inside!"
Dante didn't flinch. Instead, he smoothly handed the baby forward. "Hold him."
"What? No—"
"Hold him, Alina. Or watch my men tear this restaurant down brick by brick to audit your tax forms."
The threat was delivered with chilled, casual certainty. Trembling with equal parts fury and sheer terror, Alina raised her arms. The instant she took the warm, fragile weight of baby Leo into her embrace, the child buried his face into the hollow of her neck with an audible, shivering sigh of pure relief. His tiny fingers instantly tangled into the fabric of her light-blue shirt, clutching her as though she were the only anchor in an ocean of chaos.
A peculiar, electric warmth blossomed in Alina’s chest, melting the ice that had gripped her spine. She looked down at the soft dark curls of the infant, her breathing involuntarily syncing with his.
Dante watched the transformation, his amber eyes blazing with an unreadable, smoldering heat.
"You owe three hundred and forty thousand dollars to the city medical collections agency," Dante said calmly, adjusting his burgundy cuffs. "You live in a studio apartment in the garment district where the radiator hasn't worked since November. You work sixty hours a week and eat stale bread from the kitchen bins."
Alina looked up, humiliated and furious. "Have your men been stalking me?"
"They’ve been reading your file for the last three minutes," Dante countered smoothly. "Here is my offer, Miss Valdez. You will come to my estate. You will be my son's personal governess. You will live under my roof, eat at my table, and be guarded by my soldiers. In exchange, your mother's debts will vanish by midnight tonight, and you will receive fifty thousand dollars a month."
"And if I refuse?" Alina challenged, her chin lifting defiantly despite the tears on her face.
May you like
Dante stepped in until his lips brushed the shell of her ear, his deep voice sending a violent shiver cascading down her spine. "You can’t refuse, little bird. Because my son has chosen you. And in my world... whatever belongs to a Rosselli never gets away."
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