Chapter 2 - The Dead Man Who Was Still Breathing
The restaurant went silent the moment Sylvio Romano lifted his fork.
Thirty men in dark suits surrounded the long tables of Romano’s Restaurante, men who had spent most of their adult lives learning not to react to anything. They had seen arrests, betrayals, funerals, shattered alliances, and men disappear between one sunrise and the next.
Yet one frightened voice stopped every conversation in the room.
“DON’T EAT THAT!”
Sylvio’s fork froze inches from his mouth.
Every head turned.
Standing beneath the carved wooden archway at the entrance was a little girl.
She couldn’t have been older than nine.
Her pale pink dress was soaked through, the hem stained from the wet streets outside. Her tangled brown hair clung to her cheeks. She had lost her shoes somewhere along the way, and her bare feet were red from the cold pavement.
She was breathing so hard she could barely stand.
Two of Sylvio’s guards moved toward her.
The child recoiled.
“Please!” she cried. “Don’t let him eat it!”
Several hands disappeared beneath suit jackets.
Sylvio raised his left hand.
Instantly, everyone stopped.
Even frightened customers hiding beside tables seemed to understand that the gesture meant more than shouting ever could.
Sylvio slowly lowered his fork.
His expression did not change.
“Bring her here.”
Vincent Caruso stepped forward.
“Boss, we don’t know who sent her.”
“I said bring her here.”
Vincent hesitated.
That hesitation lasted less than a second, but Sylvio noticed it.
He noticed everything tonight.
A waiter gently guided the girl toward Sylvio’s table.
She wouldn’t stop staring at the plate.
Roasted sea bass.
Wild mushrooms.
Potatoes.
Nothing unusual.
Nothing threatening.
But fear had drained the color from the girl’s face.
Sylvio leaned forward.
“What’s your name?”
“Lucy.”
“Lucy what?”
“Lucy Bennett.”
“Where are your parents?”
Her eyes dropped.
“I don’t have any.”
Something shifted inside Sylvio, but nothing showed on his face.
“Why shouldn’t I eat my dinner, Lucy?”
The girl swallowed.
“Because somebody put something in it.”
No one moved.
Sylvio glanced toward his head chef.
The man turned white.
Vincent took another step.
“Who?”
Lucy stared at him.
Then quickly looked away.
“I don’t know his name.”
Sylvio’s gaze hardened.
“But you saw him?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“About ten minutes ago.”
“Where?”
“Behind the kitchen.”
The room seemed to contract around them.
Sylvio folded his hands.
“Tell me exactly what you saw.”
Lucy twisted the wet fabric of her dress between her fingers.
“I was outside. I came through the alley because I was looking for food.”
Several men glanced at one another.
She noticed and lowered her head.
“I wasn’t stealing.”
Nobody spoke.
“There’s a broken vent behind the restaurant,” she continued. “Sometimes the cooks put bags near there after closing. Bread. Vegetables. Things they can’t use anymore.”
Sylvio looked toward Marco Bellini, his oldest friend.
Marco gave a slight nod.
The girl was telling the truth about the alley.
Lucy continued.
“I saw a man standing beside one of the kitchen doors. He was talking to somebody.”
“Who?”
“I couldn’t see.”
“And then?”
“He waited until a waiter put a plate on a little metal table. Then he reached over it.”
Her hands began shaking.
“He poured something from a tiny bottle.”
Sylvio looked down at his untouched meal.
Nobody in the restaurant breathed normally anymore.
“What did the man look like?”
Lucy described him.
Tall.
Brown hair streaked with gray.
Expensive suit that fit strangely around the shoulders.
A nervous habit of rubbing his fingertips together.
Then she mentioned the scar.
Between his thumb and index finger.
Sylvio felt something cold move down his spine.
Tony Duca.
The name belonged to another lifetime.
Anthony Duca had once sat beside Sylvio at every important meeting. They had grown up three streets apart, fought the same boys behind the same high school, borrowed money from the same neighborhood shop owners.
Tony had called Sylvio brother.
Then he had betrayed him.
Twenty years ago, the two men had fought in an abandoned warehouse. During the struggle, Sylvio had broken a bottle and Tony had grabbed it.
The glass cut deep between Tony’s thumb and index finger.
The scar never disappeared.
Fifteen years later, Tony supposedly died.
Sylvio had attended his funeral.
He had watched the coffin lowered.
He had watched Marco throw dirt onto it.
Tony Duca was dead.
Except a frightened child had just described him perfectly.
“What else did he say?” Sylvio asked.
Lucy stopped breathing for a moment.
“Lucy?”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“He knows me.”
That changed everything.
Sylvio stood.
Vincent immediately moved closer.
“How?”
Lucy backed away.
“I saw him yesterday.”
“Where?”
“At the apartment.”
“What apartment?”
“The place where I sleep sometimes.”
Sylvio crouched so that he was closer to her height.
His men had never seen him do that for anyone.
“What happened yesterday?”
Lucy wrapped both arms around herself.
“He gave me soup.”
Sylvio waited.
“He said he was sorry I was hungry.”
Something about her expression made Sylvio’s chest tighten.
“And?”
“I ate a few bites.”
Her voice dropped.
“Then I got really sick.”
Sylvio’s jaw clenched.
The entire restaurant seemed to disappear around him.
“I heard him talking to another man outside the room. He said he needed to know how much would be enough.”
Marco cursed quietly.
Sylvio didn’t look at him.
Lucy wiped her face.
“I pretended I was sleeping. After he left, I crawled out the bathroom window.”
“You’ve been outside since yesterday?”
She nodded.
“Why come here?”
Lucy looked straight into his eyes.
“Because I heard him say your name.”
That answer hit harder than Sylvio expected.
“He said, ‘Romano won’t survive tomorrow night.’”
The silence became suffocating.
Vincent reached for his phone.
Sylvio stopped him.
“No calls.”
“Boss—”
“No one leaves.”
Marco stared at him.
“Sylvio.”
“Lock the doors.”
The restaurant entrance was secured.
Sylvio turned toward thirty men who had sworn loyalty to him.
For the first time in decades, he looked at them not as soldiers, employees, or friends.
He looked at them as suspects.
Someone inside Romano’s organization had helped a dead man return.
Someone had allowed access to the kitchen.
Someone knew the exact plate Sylvio would receive.
And someone had been willing to use a homeless child to test whether a poison would work.
That bothered Sylvio more than the attempt on his own life.
He pointed toward the kitchen.
“Bag the plate. Nobody touches it.”
Then he removed his jacket.
Lucy flinched when he approached her.
Instead of touching her, Sylvio placed the jacket over the back of a chair.
“For you.”
She stared at it.
“I’m wet.”
“I noticed.”
“I’ll ruin it.”
“It’s a jacket.”
She slowly pulled it around herself.
It almost swallowed her.
Something strange happened among Sylvio’s men.
Several looked away.
These were men who believed they had trained themselves out of sympathy.
Lucy had exposed the lie.
Sylvio pulled out a chair.
“Sit.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You came here looking for food.”
“That was before.”
“We’ll bring you something sealed.”
Her expression changed.
“You believe me?”
Sylvio looked at his untouched plate.
“You stopped me from eating.”
“But you don’t know if I’m telling the truth.”
“No.”
“Then why believe me?”
His answer surprised even himself.
“Because terrified children usually have better things to do than run through freezing rain to save strangers.”
Lucy’s lips trembled.
A waiter brought bottled water and packaged crackers from a locked storeroom.
She ate slowly.
Sylvio watched her.
Something about her bothered him.
Not the story.
Her face.
Her eyes.
He had seen those eyes before.
He just couldn’t remember where.
Marco leaned closer.
“We should move you.”
“No.”
“If Tony is really alive—”
“If Tony is really alive, somebody in this room helped him.”
Marco went still.
Sylvio looked around.
Thirty armed men.
His empire.
His family, or what he had always called family.
Suddenly he trusted none of them.
“Everyone puts their phones on the table.”
A wave of confusion moved through the room.
“You heard me.”
Phones appeared.
Vincent frowned.
“You think one of us—”
“I think Tony Duca has supposedly been dead fifteen years, yet tonight he knew exactly what I ordered.”
Vincent said nothing.
Sylvio addressed his security chief.
“Nobody leaves until we know how that happened.”
Then Lucy whispered something.
“Sylvio?”
It was the first time she had used his name.
He turned.
“I have something.”
She reached into the pocket of her soaked dress.
Vincent’s hand moved automatically toward his weapon.
Sylvio’s eyes flashed.
“Don’t.”
Lucy removed a folded photograph.
It was old and damaged from the rain.
She handed it to Sylvio.
He unfolded it carefully.
Three people stood outside a summer house.
One was Tony Duca.
One was a young woman Sylvio recognized immediately.
Isabella Romano.
Sylvio’s younger sister.
Dead for nearly a decade.
And in Isabella’s arms was a baby.
Sylvio looked at Lucy.
Then back at the photograph.
Behind it, someone had written:
If anything happens to me, find my brother Sylvio. He deserves the truth.
Sylvio’s hands began to shake.
His sister had never had children.
At least, that was what he had been told.
“Where did you get this?”
Lucy pointed toward herself.
“My mother gave it to me before she died.”
Sylvio could barely form the next question.
“Your mother’s name?”
The little girl looked frightened again.
“Isabella.”
Marco Bellini dropped his glass.
It shattered across the floor.
Sylvio turned.
Marco’s face had gone completely pale.
And in that instant, Sylvio understood something worse than the poisoned dinner.
May you like
Marco already knew.
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