Chapter 1 - The Hand He Chose
The plate exploded against the marble, and every adult in Il Destino froze.
Then three-year-old Leo Moretti bit the man trying to pick him up.
Dante Russo pulled back with a sharp curse.
At the head of the table, Rico Moretti stood so suddenly that his chair scraped across the floor.
“Everybody back.”
People obeyed him.
They always did.
But his son kept screaming.
Six months earlier, someone had murdered Elena Moretti outside a charity event in Queens.
Since then, Rico had learned that money could buy doctors, guards, and silence.
It could not make his child stop hurting.
“He doesn’t want food,” he said.
His voice cracked.
“He doesn’t want toys. He doesn’t want me.”
Across the restaurant, Clara Vance put down her tray.
Sarah caught her wrist.
“Don’t.”
“He’s scared.”
“That’s Rico Moretti.”
Clara looked at the little boy clutching his shirt.
“I know who the child is.”
She needed this job.
Her rent was overdue.
Her checking account held sixty-three dollars.
But years earlier, she had helped her younger brother Evan through panic attacks.
She recognized the quick breaths.
The desperate eyes.
The terror that got worse every time someone reached for him.
She carried warm milk across the restaurant.
Rico turned.
“What do you want?”
“To try something.”
“No.”
“You can fire me after.”
Manager Marco Bellini made a strangled noise behind her.
Clara kept looking at Rico.
“Please move back.”
For a moment, she thought he might have her thrown out.
Then he stepped away.
Clara crouched several feet from Leo and set down the glass.
“You don’t have to drink it.”
He stared at her.
“You don’t have to talk either.”
She breathed slowly.
After a moment, he copied her.
“Mommy made warm,” he whispered.
Rico’s face changed.
Clara sat on the floor.
“Then we can leave it here.”
Leo climbed down.
He took two sips.
Then his fingers closed around hers.
The restaurant stayed silent.
“Don’t go,” he whispered.
Clara looked up.
Rico Moretti, feared across Brooklyn, looked terrified of hoping.
“I can stay a little while,” she told Leo.
His head settled against her arm.
Behind Rico, Marco’s phone vibrated.
He glanced at the screen, then slipped toward the kitchen.
Clara barely noticed.
She was watching a father lower himself onto the marble beside his son.
“Can I sit here?” Rico asked.
Leo tightened his grip on Clara.
But he did not scream.
Then Marco returned, pale beneath the dining room lights.
“Clara,” he said. “Your shift is over.”
May you like
Rico looked up.
“No,” he said quietly. “It isn’t.”
