Chapter 1 - THE SIX WORDS THAT SILENCED A MAFIA FAMILY
"What did you just say to my father?"
Dominic Moretti's voice was quiet.
That made it worse.
Twelve people sat motionless around the private dining table, their silverware suspended above plates that cost more than my weekly paycheck.
I was standing beside Salvatore Moretti with a porcelain dish in my hands, wondering whether six words had just ended my career.
"I apologized for the misunderstanding, sir."
Dominic's gray eyes narrowed.
"That's not what I asked."
Across the table, his father looked as though he'd seen a ghost.
Salvatore had been furious seconds earlier. He'd complained that the chef had served him a modern interpretation of a dish he'd eaten as a boy in Sicily.
But when I'd answered him in the dialect Agatha Romano taught me, his expression had completely changed.
The six words were simple.
"U suli torna sempri a casa."
The sun always comes home.
It wasn't the translation that mattered.
It was the way Agatha had taught me to say it.
The peculiar pronunciation.
The emphasis on the final syllable.
The old village expression that had apparently traveled farther than I knew.
Salvatore slowly set down his fork.
"Who taught you that?"
I swallowed.
"An elderly woman who helped raise me."
"What was her name?"
I hesitated.
Behind me, Martin Galloway appeared through the kitchen doors.
"Mr. Moretti, I sincerely apologize. Penelope was specifically instructed not to interrupt your dinner."
Dominic didn't look at him.
"Her name."
"Penelope Carter," Martin answered quickly.
"I wasn't asking you."
Something dangerous entered Dominic's voice.
Martin fell silent.
I straightened.
"Penelope Carter, sir."
Salvatore gripped the edge of the table.
"No. The woman who taught you."
"Agatha Romano."
A glass shattered.
One of the older Moretti relatives had dropped it onto the marble floor.
Salvatore rose so abruptly that his chair scraped backward.
"Agatha?"
His voice broke.
I stared.
"Do you know her?"
Salvatore reached for the table to steady himself.
Dominic moved immediately.
"Papa?"
But the older man was looking only at me.
"Agatha Romano has been dead for thirty years."
I shook my head.
"That's impossible. I had dinner with her last Sunday."
The room became so quiet I heard the kitchen ventilation humming beyond the doors.
Dominic studied me.
"Where does she live?"
"Brooklyn."
"Where in Brooklyn?"
I stepped backward.
"I'm not comfortable sharing her address."
For the first time, something resembling approval crossed his face.
Salvatore slowly sat down.
Then he whispered something in Sicilian.
I understood every word.
My stomach tightened.
Because he hadn't asked whether Agatha was really alive.
He'd asked why she had sent me.
"I wasn't sent by anyone," I said.
Dominic turned sharply.
"You understood that?"
"Yes."
Salvatore closed his eyes.
Then he reached inside his jacket and removed an old photograph.
His hands trembled as he placed it on the table.
The picture showed three young people standing outside a stone farmhouse.
One was Salvatore.
One was an unfamiliar young man.
And the third was Agatha Romano.
On the back, written in faded blue ink, were six words.
The exact six words I had just spoken.
May you like
And beneath them was a date.
The night Salvatore's younger brother disappeared.
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