Chapter 2 - The Promise Buried in Florence
For several seconds, I heard only the fryers.
Oil crackled behind me.
A ventilation fan hummed overhead.
Matteo stood three feet away, still holding my file.
I laughed once.
It came out sharp and humorless.
“That is a strange lie.”
“It isn’t a lie.”
“My mother was a hospital translator.”
“I know.”
“She translated for cancer patients.”
“I know that too.”
I stepped closer.
“Then you also know she died with forty-three dollars in her checking account.”
His eyes remained steady.
“I know she died three years ago.”
“You know a lot for a man who walked in here ten minutes ago.”
Matteo set the file on the preparation counter.
“My mother’s name was Sofia Moretti.”
I said nothing.
“She was treated in Florence sixteen years ago. Ovarian cancer.”
“My mother never mentioned her.”
“She would not have used our family name.”
“Why?”
“Because she understood what it meant.”
I studied him.
The feared Matteo Moretti stood in the kitchen of a fast-food restaurant speaking about his mother with controlled gentleness.
It did not match the man who had mocked my shoes.
That made me trust him even less.
“What exactly did my mother do?”
Matteo glanced toward the kitchen doors, making sure we were alone.
“One night, my mother collapsed in a private treatment wing. A nurse had misread her chart. She was given a medication that could have killed her.”
“And my mother stopped it?”
“She recognized the dosage was wrong.”
“That sounds like her.”
“She argued with a doctor until security came.”
“That also sounds like her.”
Matteo’s gaze shifted briefly to the floor.
“She stayed with my mother for nine hours.”
I swallowed.
A memory surfaced.
My mother returning to our apartment in Florence before sunrise, exhausted, her cardigan stained with coffee.
She had told me only that a patient had needed help.
“She never told me.”
“My mother asked her not to.”
“Why?”
“Because powerful families create dangerous gratitude.”
I looked at him.
“That sounds rehearsed.”
“It has been in my head for sixteen years.”
Matteo reached into his jacket.
I tensed.
He noticed.
Slowly, he pulled out an old folded photograph.
He placed it on the counter between us.
Two women stood outside a hospital courtyard in Florence.
One was elegant, dark-haired, and thin from treatment.
The other was my mother.
Elena Romano wore the blue scarf I had bought her from a street market.
My breath caught.
I picked up the photograph.
On the back, in my mother’s handwriting, were four words.
For Sofia. Keep fighting.
I pressed my thumb over the ink.
“Where did you get this?”
“My mother kept it.”
I looked up.
“What does this have to do with me?”
“Before Sofia died, she made me promise that if Elena or her daughter ever needed help, I would provide it.”
I gave the photograph back.
“My mother died three years ago. Where were you?”
The question landed harder than I intended.
Matteo did not flinch.
“I did not know she had returned to Philadelphia.”
“You own shipping companies, warehouses, restaurants, and apparently employee files. Yet you could not find one hospital translator?”
“I searched under her maiden name.”
“She stopped using it after my father left.”
“I know that now.”
“How convenient.”
His jaw tightened.
“You think I came here looking for you?”
“Didn’t you?”
“No.”
“Then why do you have my file?”
“I asked for it after you mentioned Florence.”
“So this is coincidence?”
“It appears so.”
I folded my arms.
“Your mother made you promise to help me, and the universe placed you in my section?”
“I do not believe in the universe.”
“Of course not.”
“I believe in information.”
“And threats.”
“When necessary.”
I pointed toward the dining room.
“You insulted me before you knew who I was.”
His expression hardened with something that looked almost like shame.
“Yes.”
“No excuse?”
“No.”
“That was fast.”
“You were right.”
“I know.”
His mouth moved faintly.
This time it was unmistakable.
He almost smiled.
Then the kitchen door opened.
Brad stepped halfway inside.
“Mr. Moretti, your food is ready.”
Matteo did not look at him.
“Put it on the table.”
Brad glanced at me.
“Is she still employed?”
Matteo turned.
“Why wouldn’t she be?”
Brad swallowed.
“No reason.”
“Good.”
He disappeared again.
I leaned against the counter.
“I don’t need your help.”
“You are forty-five dollars short on rent.”
My eyes narrowed.
“That is not in my employee file.”
“No.”
“You had someone search me.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“While you were insulting my grammar.”
“That was less than ten minutes.”
“My people are efficient.”
“That is disturbing.”
“It was intended to be.”
I stepped toward him.
“You do not get to investigate my life and call it kindness.”
“I did not call it kindness.”
“What do you call it?”
“Preparation.”
“For what?”
Matteo’s expression changed again.
The softness disappeared.
“Someone else has been asking about you.”
A chill moved across my skin.
“Who?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I expect you to understand that I would not be standing in a kitchen explaining myself if it were unimportant.”
I glanced toward the back exit.
“What kind of questions?”
“Where you live. What hours you work. Whether you have family.”
I forced a laugh.
“Maybe a debt collector.”
“Debt collectors do not use fake names and cash.”
My hands went cold.
“Why would anyone care about me?”
“That is what I intend to discover.”
“You?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
He raised one eyebrow.
“No?”
“I am not becoming part of whatever this is.”
“You may already be part of it.”
“Then remove me.”
“If it were that simple, I would.”
I stared at him.
The kitchen suddenly felt too small.
Matteo picked up the photograph and slipped it back inside his jacket.
“I will have someone watch your apartment.”
“You will not.”
“It was not a request.”
“That sentence probably works on everyone else.”
“It usually does.”
“Then today is educational.”
I stepped around him and pushed open the kitchen door.
The dining room fell silent again when I returned.
Matteo followed.
His men watched us carefully.
I delivered the burger to his table.
He sat down.
I placed the tray in front of him.
“Anything else?”
“Sit.”
“I’m working.”
“Two minutes.”
“I make three dollars an hour before tips. Your two minutes are expensive.”
He took a hundred-dollar bill from his wallet and placed it on the table.
I looked at it.
“That does not buy obedience.”
“It buys two minutes.”
I glanced at Brad.
He was pretending not to watch.
I slid into the edge of the booth.
Matteo’s associate on the left introduced himself.
“Luca Moretti.”
“Brother?”
“Cousin.”
The other man nodded.
“Salvatore Greco.”
I looked back at Matteo.
“Are introductions supposed to make this less threatening?”
“No.”
“Good. I would hate dishonesty.”
Luca leaned forward.
“Someone used one of our contacts to access an old medical archive in Florence.”
My stomach tightened.
“What archive?”
“The treatment records connected to our mothers,” Matteo said.
“Why?”
“We do not know.”
“Was my mother involved in anything besides translation?”
Matteo’s eyes stayed on mine.
“That is what we need to determine.”
I shook my head.
“My mother hated secrets.”
“Everyone has secrets.”
“Not her.”
“Especially good people.”
Before I could answer, Jenna hurried toward us.
“Tessa.”
Her voice trembled.
I turned.
“What happened?”
She held out her phone.
“There’s a man outside asking which car is yours.”
Matteo stood immediately.
The gentleness vanished.
His chair barely made a sound against the floor.
“Where?”
Jenna pointed toward the front windows.
A man in a gray jacket stood near the parking lot, pretending to look at the menu board.
He was watching the restaurant.
Matteo spoke quietly to Luca.
“Back door.”
Luca moved at once.
Salvatore reached inside his jacket.
Matteo caught his wrist.
“No weapons in the restaurant.”
His voice was calm.
That somehow made it more frightening.
The man outside looked up.
Our eyes met through the glass.
He turned and walked quickly toward a dark sedan.
Matteo was already moving.
I grabbed his sleeve.
“What are you doing?”
“Finding out who he is.”
“You walk outside, he drives away.”
Matteo looked at me.
“You have a better idea?”
“Yes.”
I pointed toward the order counter.
“Drive-thru camera.”
Brad frowned from behind the register.
“The camera barely works.”
“It works enough.”
I rushed to the manager’s office, Matteo behind me.
Brad started protesting.
“You cannot go in there.”
I pushed open the door.
“Then fire me.”
The security monitor showed six grainy camera angles.
I rewound the drive-thru feed.
The dark sedan had entered four minutes earlier.
Its rear license plate was visible for less than two seconds.
Matteo leaned over my shoulder.
“Pause it.”
I froze the image.
Luca entered through the back.
“He’s gone.”
Matteo took out his phone and photographed the screen.
I looked at the sedan.
There was a white sticker on the rear window.
A red lily inside a circle.
I felt my stomach drop.
Matteo noticed.
“You recognize it.”
I stepped back.
“No.”
“Tessa.”
“My mother had that symbol in one of her books.”
The room went still.
“What book?” he asked.
“A poetry collection she brought back from Florence.”
“Where is it?”
“In my apartment.”
Matteo slipped his phone into his pocket.
“We are going there.”
“I am not leaving work with three suspected criminals.”
Luca looked mildly offended.
“Suspected?”
Matteo ignored him.
“You are not going alone.”
“I have lived alone for three years.”
“And someone has been asking about you for two weeks.”
I turned toward Brad.
“Can I leave early?”
Brad looked from me to Matteo.
“Yes.”
“Paid?”
“No.”
Matteo looked at him.
Brad cleared his throat.
“Yes. Paid.”
I grabbed my jacket from the hook.
Matteo opened the office door for me.
His voice was quiet.
“From this moment forward, you do not leave my sight.”
I pulled on my jacket.
May you like
“That sounds less like protection and more like kidnapping.”
“It depends on how difficult you make the drive.”
