Chapter 2 - The Photograph on the Hostess Stand
The next morning, I arrived expecting another exhausting shift.
Instead, my manager, Victor, grabbed my arm before I could tie my apron.
“Olivia.”
His face was pale.
“What?”
He glanced toward the dining room.
“What exactly did you do to Mr. Moretti’s dog last night?”
“I petted him.”
Victor stared at me.
“That’s it?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t feed him anything?”
“No.”
“Give him something?”
“No.”
“Say anything unusual?”
I laughed nervously.
“I called him handsome.”
Victor didn’t laugh.
My smile faded.
“Why?”
He lowered his voice.
“Mr. Moretti’s people have been asking questions about you.”
A chill crawled along my spine.
“What kind of questions?”
“Where you live. How long you’ve worked here. Whether you have family in New York.”
My stomach dropped.
“Why would they care?”
Victor opened his mouth.
Before he could answer, headlights flashed through the restaurant windows.
A black SUV stopped outside.
Two men in dark suits stepped onto the sidewalk.
The same men from last night.
My heart began pounding.
“Victor…”
His phone rang.
He looked at the screen and went white.
“Hello?”
He listened.
His eyes slowly lifted toward me.
“Yes. She’s here.”
My blood turned cold.
Victor ended the call.
“Olivia…”
“What?”
“Mr. Moretti wants to see you.”
I stared toward the SUV.
“No.”
Victor blinked.
“No?”
“I don’t know him.”
“I don’t think this is an invitation you refuse.”
My mouth went dry.
“Why does he want me?”
Victor swallowed.
“Apparently, Orion hasn’t eaten since you left.”
I stared at him.
“He hasn’t slept either.”
“What?”
“He spent the entire night sitting beside the front door.”
That didn’t make sense.
I had known the dog for less than thirty seconds.
Victor stepped closer.
“There’s something else.”
I immediately hated the way he said it.
“What?”
“One of Moretti’s men came here before opening.”
My pulse quickened.
“He showed me an old photograph and asked if I recognized the woman in it.”
“What woman?”
Victor hesitated.
Then he reached inside his jacket.
He removed a folded photocopy and placed it on the hostess stand.
My breath stopped.
The photograph was decades old.
A young woman stood beside a black dog remarkably similar to Orion.
Her hair was darker than mine.
Her clothes belonged to another era.
But her face—
My face.
Same eyes.
Same mouth.
Same tiny indentation in the chin.
“What the hell is this?”
Victor whispered, “That’s what Mr. Moretti wants to know.”
My hands began shaking.
I turned the photograph over.
Something had been written on the back.
A name.
Evelyn Marshall.
My mother’s name.
My mother, who had died when I was six.
I felt the floor shift beneath me.
“Where did he get this?”
Victor’s face tightened.
“Olivia… there’s more.”
The restaurant door opened.
One of Dante’s bodyguards stepped inside.
“Miss Marshall.”
I couldn’t move.
His expression wasn’t threatening.
If anything, it looked disturbed.
“Mr. Moretti is waiting.”
“For what?”
The bodyguard looked at the photograph in my hand.
Then at me.
“For an explanation.”
“I don’t have one.”
His jaw tightened.
“Neither does he.”
Outside, the SUV’s rear door suddenly opened.
And Orion jumped out.
Before either bodyguard could stop him, the enormous dog raced through the restaurant.
Straight toward me.
“Orion!”
The dog ignored them.
He reached me and pressed his body against my legs so hard I nearly fell.
Then he began whining.
Not excitedly.
Desperately.
His nose moved over my coat, my hands, my face.
As though searching for something he had lost.
Dante Moretti stepped through the doorway.
For the first time, the feared Mafia boss looked nothing like the terrifying man I had met the previous night.
He looked shaken.
His gray eyes moved from Orion to the photograph trembling in my hand.
“My mother,” I whispered. “Why do you have a picture of my mother?”
Dante’s expression hardened.
“That woman wasn’t supposed to be your mother.”
My blood went cold.
“What does that mean?”
He took one slow step toward me.
Then Orion suddenly growled.
Everyone froze.
The dog was no longer looking at Dante.
He was staring past me.
Toward a man standing outside the restaurant window.
A man I had never seen before.
The stranger’s face turned white when he realized Orion had recognized him.
Then he ran.
Dante’s bodyguards immediately reached beneath their jackets.
And Dante looked at me with an expression I would never forget.
“Olivia,” he said quietly, “get behind me.”
“Why?”
His eyes stayed locked on the fleeing man.
“Because if that photograph is real…”
May you like
He paused.
“…then someone has been lying to both of us for twenty years.”
